Welcome to Number 10, Boris Johnson. Now You Have Some Work to Do
Mollifying Parliament and delivering Brexit will be harder than the new prime minister made it sound.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is welcomed by staff at 10 Downing Street in London after meeting Queen Elizabeth II and accepting her invitation to form a new government on July 24.
Photographer: Stefan Rousseau/Pool/REUTERS
Boris Johnson’s installation as British prime minister caps a career as famous for its setbacks as its successes. Sacked as a reporter for the Times of London in 1988 for inventing a quote, he became a star at its rival, the Telegraph, where his stories were often more entertaining than accurate. On entering politics, he was fired as a Conservative Party spokesman for lying about an affair, then was twice elected mayor of London, from which position he managed to take credit for some of his predecessor’s ideas.
In his one job at the national level, foreign secretary to then-Prime Minister Theresa May, Johnson was sidelined from Brexit negotiations, the biggest foreign policy question facing the nation. Now he’s back in national politics, this time at the top.