Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson MP (born June 19, 1964), better known as Boris Johnson, is a Euro-sceptic, British right-wing journalist and Conservative Member of Parliament as well as the editor of the magazine The Spectator.
He was born in New York to Stanley Patrick Johnson and Charlotte Johnson. He was educated at Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar, and read Greats at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Brackenbury Scholar, and President of the Oxford Union.
After leaving university he lasted a week as a management consultant ('Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix, and stay conscious'), before becoming a trainee reporter for The Times in 1987, but within a year had been sacked for falsifying a quotation from his godfather, Colin Lucas, later Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Following a short period as a writer for the Wolverhampton Express and Star he joined the Daily Telegraph in 1987 as leader and feature writer, and from 1989 to 1994 was the paper's European Community correspondent. He served as assistant editor from 1994-1999. His association with The Spectator began with a stint as political columnist from 1994 to 1995. In 1999 he left the Daily Telegraph to become editor of The Spectator.
Johnson is famously disorganised and once explained the lateness of his work by claiming that "Dark forces dragged me away from the keyboard, swirling forces of irresistible intensity and power".
In 2001 Johnson became Member of Parliament for Henley-upon-Thames, succeeding the outgoing Michael Heseltine. He had previously been unsuccessful in winning Clwyd South in 1997. In 2004, he was appointed to the frontbench as shadow minister for the arts, after a small reshuffle was cause by home affairs spokeman Nick Hawkins' resigning following his deselection by his local association, Surrey Heath. He is also one of two vice-chairs of the party, along with Maurice Saatchi.
At 19 he was married briefly to Allegra Mostyn-Owen. In 1993 he married Marina Wheeler, a barrister (and the daughter of Charles Wheeler), who is the mother of his two sons and two daughters.
Johnson has appeared on Have I Got News For You three times, and twice as guest presenter, and has also appeared on its sister radio programme The News Quiz. He has written an autobiographical account of his experience of the 2001 election campaign entitled Friends, Voters, Countrymen, Jottings on the Stump (Harper Collins, 2002). He is also the author of two collections of journalism Johnson's Column and Lend Me Your Ears (Harper Collins, 2003). His first novel Seventy-Two Virgins is due for publication later in 2004, and he is currently working on a book about what it means to be British, due for publication in 2005.
A Boris Johnson Fan Club was founded in 2002.
He was nominated in 2004 for a BAFTA television award.
