The highs and lows of Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister

Boris Johnson’s controversial premiership comes to an end today after Liz Truss was chosen to replace him as party leader and prime minister.

Less than three years after leading the Conservatives to their biggest election victory in 30 years, the former mayor of London announced he was stepping down in July after the mass resignation of ministers made his position untenable.

In his last article as PM, published in the Sunday Express last weekend, Johnson said the brutal mud-slinging that has marred the Tory leadership race must stop for the good of party and country. This is “the moment for every Conservative to come together and back the new leader wholeheartedly”, he wrote.

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Nicknamed “Teflon” for his ability to emerge unscathed from scandals that would sink most other politicians, Johnson’s time in No. 10 has been dominated by Brexit, Covid and scandals. Here are the highs and lows of his tumultuous premiership:

24 July 2019: Johnson assumes office

After becoming prime minister just over three years ago, Johnson promised to defy “the doubters, the doomsters and the gloomsters” by delivering Brexit within 99 days.

In a speech outside 10 Downing Street that was “infused with patriotic pronouncements”, said The Guardian, Johnson declared that “people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts”. Following three years of “unfounded self-doubt”, the PM said, it was “time to change the record”.

Brexit “broke” Theresa May, wrote Alan McGuinness for Sky News, but Johnson’s “unique blend of rhetoric and optimism” was “the perfect tonic for a party that wants to feel good about itself again”.

3 September 2019: he loses his majority

Johnson faced a major showdown with his own MPs as they sought to block the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

The “opening gambit” in an “acrimonious” debate was the defection of Phillip Lee, a Conservative MP who crossed the floor to join the benches of the Liberal Democrats as the prime minister addressed the Commons, reported Politico. He accused the government of using “political manipulation, bullying and lies” to push through its plans on Brexit.

Johnson later removed the whip from 21 rebel Tories for voting against the government. The rebels included Ken Clarke, an MP since 1970, and Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill.

13 December 2019: a general election victory

After forcing an election over the Commons stalemate on Brexit, Johnson secured a “crushing victory” as voters backed his pledge to “get Brexit done”, reported The Guardian.

The Conservatives won 364 of the 650 seats up for grabs, in what the paper noted was “the party’s best showing in a parliamentary election since Margaret Thatcher triumphed in 1987”.

Equally “astonishing” were the crushing defeats in the historic Labour heartlands, said the BBC’s political correspondent Nick Eardley. “Labour, by contrast, could hardly be in a worse position,” Eardley wrote.

7 April 2020: Johnson is admitted to intensive care with Covid-19

Just four months after his election victory high, in what The New York Times described as a “cruel reversal” of fortunes, the PM was admitted to intensive care with Covid-19 – the first major world leader reported to have contracted the virus.

The then foreign secretary Dominic Raab deputised throughout Johnson’s illness, which briefly “plunged the country back into the uncertainty Britons thought they had left behind” after so recently emerging from the “paralysis and polarisation” of Brexit, said the paper.

In an interview with The Sun on Sunday, the PM later revealed that he needed “litres and litres” of oxygen during his three-day stay in St Thomas’ intensive care unit in London, and that it was “50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe”.

13 November 2020: Dominic Cummings resigns

Dominic Cummings “was seen leaving No. 10 a short while ago carrying a box”, reported the BBC, as Johnson’s closest adviser and key ally quit following a dispute that also triggered the resignation of communications director Lee Cain.

Their departures would “mark the end of the Vote Leave clique’s iron grip on government”, said the Daily Mail. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg described Cummings’ exit as “a political explosion”.

Although Cummings would frame his departure as part of a long-term master plan, insiders told the BBC’s political editor that he “jumped because otherwise he would be pushed soon”. Johnson had recently come to see that his former aide’s band of “Brexit Boys” were just “in it for themselves”, the source claimed.

8 December 2020: vaccination programme begins to roll out

One of the biggest successes for Johnson and his government was the UK’s Covid-19 vaccination programme. Indeed, “Britain soared ahead of every comparable country in the weeks after the vaccines became available, with the one exception being Israel”, said Hugo Gye of the i news site.

But criticism was not far behind. “Global leadership is an unaccustomed status for a country with one of the highest rates of excess deaths in western Europe,” said the Financial Times. “Multiple missteps”, such as the much-maligned NHS Track and Trace system, meant that “cynicism” remained over the government’s handling of the pandemic, the paper reported.

21 December 2020: Christmas is ‘cancelled’

The hopes of a Christmas with loved ones were “dashed” for almost 20 million people after Johnson placed London and large parts of the southeast under “draconian” Tier-4 coronavirus restrictions, said PoliticsHome.

Johnson had previously promised that Britons would be allowed to form “bubbles” with two other households over the Christmas period.

“I want to be clear, we don’t want to ban Christmas,” Johnson told a press conference on 16 December. “And I think that would be frankly inhuman and against the instincts of many people in this country.”

But a few days later, families were told they could not mix after all.

29 May 2021: Johnson marries fiancée Carrie Symonds

After a turbulent year, Johnson married Carrie Symonds in a secretly planned Catholic ceremony at Westminster Cathedral.

Only 30 people attended the Covid-compliant wedding, as Johnson became the first PM to marry in office for “nearly 200 years”, the BBC reported.

Some “disgruntled” congregants questioned how “the twice-divorced prime minister was able to marry in a Catholic church”, said The Telegraph.

19 July 2021: England’s ‘Freedom Day’

As England prepared for all social distancing rules to be lifted on what some newspapers dubbed “Freedom Day”, both Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were accused of trying to “dodge” self-isolation rules, after being in close contact with health secretary Sajid Javid, who had tested positive for coronavirus, reported the BBC.

No. 10 initially said that Johnson and Sunak would not isolate as they were taking part in a pilot scheme that involved daily testing. But the duo were forced to “perform a full reversal little more than two-and-a-half hours” later, amid widespread anger as opposition parties suggested there was “one rule for them and one for the rest of us”, reported Sky News.

30 November 2021: Partygate allegations

The first allegations that Boris Johnson and Downing Street staff might have broken the government’s own Covid rules by holding parties and events during the 2020 Christmas holidays were reported by the Mirror.

The paper said that at least two parties had taken place. The PM was reported to have given a speech at a “packed leaving do” for a senior aide. And at a second event, while the rest of the country was locked down at home, officials were said to have “knocked back glasses of wine during a Christmas quiz and a Secret Santa”.

Downing Street did not deny that the events had taken place, but a spokesperson insisted that “Covid rules have been followed at all times”.

However, in a hint that further damaging revelations were to follow, a source told the Mirror that there had been “many social gatherings” in Downing Street over the holiday season.

25 January 2022: Scotland Yard launches probe

The Metropolitan Police launched an official investigation into alleged Covid rule-breaking by lawmakers and officials, following a string of damaging revelations in the press and an internal government investigation conducted by top civil servant Sue Gray.

Named Operation Hillman, the police probe focused on 12 alleged incidents on eight dates between May 2020 and April 2021, and examined more than 500 documents and 300 photographs gathered by the Gray investigation.

The force sent more than 100 questionnaires to those suspected of attending parties at Downing Street and Whitehall, including Johnson, that asked for “an account and explanation of the recipient’s participation”. According to the Mirror, Johnson was thought to have attended at least seven of the parties investigated by the Met.

9 April 2022: Johnson visits Ukraine

In what No. 10 called a “show of solidarity” with Ukraine amid the Russian invasion, Johnson made an unannounced visit to Kyiv for talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Johnson paid tribute to “Zelenskyy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people”, adding that “Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv”.

“I made clear today that the United Kingdom stands unwaveringly with them in this ongoing fight, and we are in it for the long run,” the PM said. “We are stepping up our own military and economic support and convening a global alliance to bring this tragedy to an end, and ensure Ukraine survives and thrives as a free and sovereign nation.”

Johnson pledged new lethal aid to Ukraine in the form of “120 armoured vehicles and anti-ship missile systems”, as well as further economic support for the embattled nation, “taking total UK loan guarantees to £770m”, the BBC reported.

In a televised statement, he said that Ukrainians had shown “the courage of a lion” and that their president had “given the roar of that lion”.

12 April 2022: fined over lockdown parties

Johnson became “the first sitting prime minister to be criminally sanctioned” after the Met issued him with a £50 fixed penalty notice for attending a party for his birthday at No. 10 in June 2020, reported The Guardian.

His wife was also fined for attending the surprise birthday party, as was Rishi Sunak.

After Gray’s long-awaited report was published in May, pressure from within the Conservative Party grew on Johnson, with a “drip feed of no confidence letters” being sent to Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee, along with senior Tory MPs publicly calling for the PM to go.

“Veteran Tory” Bob Neill, chairman of the Commons Justice Committee, added his name to that list, “saying he did not regard the PM’s explanations as ‘credible’”, reported Sky News.

6 June 2022: narrowly wins confidence vote

Mounting dissatisfaction with Johnson finally boiled over in June when the necessary threshold of Tory MPs submitted letters to the 1922 committee withdrawing their support for the prime minister, triggering a confidence vote.

In the end, a majority of Tory MPs backed the prime minister. But the margin of victory – 211 votes for to 148 against – was much closer than many had expected.

Despite Johnson describing the vote win as “decisive” and “an opportunity to put behind us all the stuff that the media goes on about”, the BBC said: “The scale of the rebellion against him showed his authority had been weakened.”

Noting the vote share in support of Johnson was lower than the 63% received by former prime minister Theresa May when she won a party confidence vote in 2018 before resigning six months later over a Brexit deadlock, the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason said: “The simple truth is when more than four in ten of your own MPs think the country would be better off without you, you have a problem.”

Nevertheless, under existing Tory party rules, the win meant Johnson was immune from a Conservative leadership challenge for a year.

15 June 2022: ethics adviser quits

A week after the confidence vote, Lord Geidt, Johnson’s ethics adviser, quit, saying he had been put in an “impossible and odious position”.

Geidt had threatened to quit the previous month after concluding that there were “legitimate” questions about whether the prime minister broke the ministerial code over the lockdown parties scandal in Downing Street.

30 June: the Chris Pincher affair

What started off as a sexual harassment story featuring yet another Tory MP in the end proved to be the final nail in the coffin of Johnson’s political career.

Chris Pincher, the MP for Tamworth and the deputy chief whip, resigned from the government on 1 July and was suspended from the Conservative Party a day later in the wake of allegations that he groped two men in the private members’ Carlton Club.

Yet as more historic allegations emerged, Johnson was accused of ignoring warnings of inappropriate behaviour by Pincher before appointing him to the role of deputy chief whip in February 2022.

“Under mounting pressure to reveal what he knew” before appointing him to the whips’ office, which oversees discipline within the party, Johnson and his aides repeatedly obfuscated and changed their story, said the BBC.

Speaking to Sky News’ Kay Burley, education minister Will Quince said he had been given “categorical assurance” from No. 10 that Johnson was “not aware of any serious specific allegations” against Pincher when he was appointed. But within hours, the prime minister’s official spokesman admitted that Johnson had been “aware of media reports that others had seen over the years”.

In an attempt to put an end to the growing furore Johnson issued a full apology in an interview with the BBC’s Chris Mason but it was too late, with senior cabinet ministers Javid and Sunak announcing their resignations as the interview aired.

7 July: he announces his resignation

Javid’s decision to quit as health secretary on 5 July triggered the deluge of resignations that ultimately toppled Johnson.

In a seismic 48 hours in Westminster, more than 50 ministers followed Javid in protest at Johnson’s decision to remain in Downing Street.

Having initially sought to stem the tide by quickly appointing replacements to the cabinet, by the morning of 7 July the game was up after it became clear he had lost the support of almost all his MPs and a flurry of junior ministerial resignations left his government struggling to function.

Announcing his resignation outside No. 10 surrounded by his family and closest aides, Johnson delivered what politics lecturer Paula Keaveney described on The Conversation as “a bitter resignation speech” that “was followed by objections over its tone and led to calls for him to depart straight away rather than staying on until his successor is appointed”.

6 September: he finally stands down as PM

Having taken the dramatic step of calling – and winning - a confidence vote in his own government in the days after his resignation announcement Johnson was able to stay on in No. 10 while a new leader was chosen.

Despite the UK being in the grips of a cost-of-living crisis, the outgoing prime minister was accused of shirking his responsibilities and leading a “zombie government” by his critics, a view not helped by his decision to take numerous holidays abroad over the summer.

He departed Downing Street with the threat of an ongoing Commons inquiry into whether he deliberately misled Parliament still hanging over him.

Yet even with the threat of losing his Uxbridge seat and the unceremonious way he was thrown out by his own MPs, many, including perhaps Johnson himself, see this not as the end but merely a prelude to a second act.

“When it comes to Johnson’s numerous misdemeanours, Conservatives seem eager to forgive and forget as soon as possible, with many not seeming to think there is anything to forgive,” said Prospect.

Johnson suggested as much with his final PMQs, signing off with the phrase “Hasta la vista, baby”.

Given his extraordinary political career it would be foolish to write off such a dramatic return completely.