Brexit, lies and many fans: Boris Johnson celebrates his 60th birthday

The blonde hair is, as always, artfully tousled, the chin is unshaven and the look seems a little sleepy. Of course, it's him: Hello guys, Boris Johnson here. In a video clip, the Conservative politician campaigns for party colleague Simon Clarke ahead of the UK's July 4 general election.

Otherwise, we haven't really seen Johnson in the election campaign, even though his Conservatives are about 20 points behind Keir Starmer's Labor Party in the polls. Many Conservative members would like to engage what is probably the party's best campaigner in a much more visible way than just cellphone videos. At least, according to the Telegraph newspaper, he is now expected to sign a letter calling on people to vote Conservative.

Today, the former Prime Minister and Mayor of London, populist and repeatedly convicted of lying, Boris Johnson, celebrates his 60th birthday.

In 2019, he led the Conservatives to an overwhelming majority of 80 seats. Johnson is not running in the next election. Just over a year ago, he resigned his seat in the House of Commons and thus avoided being suspended for lying to Parliament.

There is a lot of room for speculation as to why he did not run for office. This has little to do with the fact that Johnson's popularity plummeted because of his scandals and the chaos he caused in government. There are still enough fans there.

He is said to be more interested in earning a lot of money by giving speeches and devoting himself to his book projects. Others suspect that Johnson does not want to be associated with the disastrous election result the Conservatives are heading towards. What's more: he wants to let his close enemy and successor Rishi Sunak completely fail. This is also why Clarke, an outspoken critic of Sunak, enjoys support.

Johnson considers the outgoing prime minister, who served under him as finance minister, a traitor responsible for his end in Downing Street. Johnson has never specifically said this, but his allies, such as former culture minister Nadine Dorries, have left no doubt about his opinion. Sunak, who cannot be picky about the catastrophic poll results, exulted on Tuesday: It's great that Boris is supporting the Conservative Party. I am very happy about it. He was sure it would make a difference.

With his wife Carrie and their three children from his first marriage to solicitor Marina Wheeler, he has four grown-up children from an affair, Johnson lives on a listed property in Oxfordshire. Carrie Johnson, 36, delighted the tabloids with sweet christening photos of her youngest son Frank on Instagram.

Father Boris was recently ridiculed for being turned away at the polling station during the local elections. He did not have the required identification documents with him; he himself had introduced the law as Prime Minister. Otherwise, it's been surprisingly quiet recently around the speaker.

But political scientist Tim Bale is sure that Johnson will not remain in the political shadows. “I expect that at some point he will try to come back to Parliament to lead the party again and somehow repair the disaster he has been for the country and the party as Prime Minister,” said the expert from Queen Mary University of London. from the German Press Agency.

What was Johnson's greatest achievement during his term in office? For him and his supporters, certainly, for pushing through Brexit, whatever the cost, as Bale says. Johnson, who had by then resigned as foreign secretary, had become a Brexit spokesman before the 2016 referendum. He was not concerned about spreading alternative facts about British payments to the EU without blinking an eye.

And how does the political scientist himself see Johnson's contribution? “For me, his achievement convinces so many colleagues and voters that someone who is so obviously morally, characteristically and intellectually unsuitable for the job of prime minister should still get the job,” says Bale. The backlash is surprising and shows how emotional Johnson's personality still is in Britain.