Boris, the Prime Minister who was ‘oven ready’…
…although his Ministers didn’t agree
This week was the final chapter of Boris Johnson’s term as Prime Minister (although he will continue as PM and leader until a replacement is elected by the party)
He’d served for close to three years as PM and Conservative Party leader before his resignation sparked by the resignation of 6 cabinet members* and 28 ministers (there were 53 MPs who quit their role in total, plus Michael Gove who was sacked)
This brought the total number of ministerial resignations during Boris’ premiership to 47, higher than the 36 ministers who resigned during Theresa May’s time in office (also 3 years)
His term was considerably shorter than most other modern day Prime Ministers, who also had fewer ministerial resignations. In total:
- Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair had 24 and 29 resignations, but over much longer durations as PM (12 and 10 years, respectively)
- David Cameron and Gordon Brown both had the fewest resignations (13) over their 6 and 3 years as PM, respectively
These resignations followed a string of scandals including Party Gate, in which 83 people were fined over parties in Downing Street, receiving £58k from Tory donors to renovate Downing Street and 5 Conservative MPs facing allegations of sexual misconduct (and in some cases stepping down)
As a result, Boris’ popularity has dipped to an all-time low:
- a YouGov poll showed 73% of respondents thought he was doing a bad job as PM (as of 30th June)
- Opinion polls now consistent put Labour (at 39%) ahead of the Tories (33%), despite the Tories having a 8 point lead just one year ago
- Similarly, his trustworthiness rating fell to only 13% (vs. 36% when he started in 2019)
So what else do you need to know about Boris?
- Johnson was born in the US and lived their for the first 5 years of his life, granting him dual citizenship until he gave up his American nationality in 2017
- He’s been sacked 2 times before for lying (once as a journalist at The Times, once as an MP)
- He’s been married 3 times, to Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987, Marina Wheeler in 1993 (allegedly 12 days after his first divorce), and most recently to Carrie Symonds
- And he has 6 children from these marriages (4 to Marina Wheeler and 2 with Carrie Symonds) and at least 1 child outside of these marriages, born during an affair with Helen Macintyre in 2009
Note*: includes both full and attending members
Source: Institute of Government; Financial Times, The Times; MSN; BBC; The Sun; Yahoo News; YouGov; The Standard; MSN; The Mirror; Factsking; GoodyFeed
