Public image of Boris Johnson
Johnson's supporters have praised him for "getting Brexit done", overseeing the UK's vaccine rollout against COVID-19, as well as providing global leadership following the Russian invasion of Ukraine; conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism and cronyism, with his final months in office mired in a series of scandals.
"[6] To the journalist Dave Hill, Johnson was "a unique figure in British politics, an unprecedented blend of comedian, conman, faux subversive showman and populist media confection".
Resourceful, cunning and strategic, he can pull off serious political coups when the greater good happens to coincide with his personal advantage but these aspirations are rarely backed up by concrete achievements, or even detailed plans.
[19] He would be angered with those he thought insulted aspects of his personal life; for instance, when an article in The Telegraph upset Johnson, he emailed commissioning editor Sam Leith with the simple message "Fuck off and die.
[27] Writing in The Guardian, journalist Polly Toynbee referred to him as a "jester, toff, self-absorbed sociopath and serial liar",[28] while Labour politician Hazel Blears called him "a nasty right-wing elitist, with odious views and criminal friends".
[29] He was accused of sexism and homophobia by social media users and members of the LGBT community after referring to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as "a big girl's blouse"[30][31] and former prime minister David Cameron as a "girly swot".
[39] In 2019, The Irish Times described him as "a deeply polarising figure, cherished by many older Conservatives but viewed by others as a serial liar and an amoral opportunist who sold Brexit to the British people on the basis of false promises".
[40] In 2019, Johnson's former boss at The Daily Telegraph Max Hastings described him as "a brilliant entertainer", but accused him of "[caring] for no interest save his own fame and gratification", criticised his leadership abilities and described him as "unfit for national office".
[41] Laura Kuenssberg wrote in December 2021 that public perceptions of Johnson had been damaged by a series of controversies related to Westminster Christmas parties during the COVID-19 pandemic, Owen Paterson, and a Downing Street refurbishment.
[42] The former Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, appearing in a Sky News programme, "The Great Debate", described Johnson as "ritually dishonest" and the worst of the twelve prime ministers he had known, with no redeeming features.
[54][55] Comparisons have also been made between Johnson and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, owing to numerous scandals, similar public images and their informal communications styles.
[58] BBC News described this as a strategy to "bamboozle the listener with a blizzard of verbiage",[59] and a 2021 analysis in The Atlantic suggested Johnson's communication style was a honed political skill that contributed to his popularity.
[47] In 2019, The Independent listed his "most notorious untruths", which included fabricating a quotation whilst at The Times for which he was sacked, creating Euromyths while working for The Daily Telegraph in Brussels, misrepresenting events during the Hillsborough disaster while the editor of The Spectator, lying to Conservative leader Michael Howard about his extramarital affair, and promising that leaving the EU would provide £350 million per week for the NHS.
[70][71][72] In August 2018, The Daily Telegraph published a satirical article by Johnson criticising the then newly implemented Danish law against the wearing of Islamic face veils (i.e., the burqa or niqāb).
He agreed the burqa is oppressive and that "it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces" and also commented that he could "find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran" and that it seemed "absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes" and that "[i]f a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber" that he "should feel fully entitled—like Jack Straw—to ask her to remove it so that [he] could talk to her properly.
[82] In his 2004 comic novel Seventy-Two Virgins, Johnson described the thoughts of a black parking inspector who had been subjected to racist abuse: "Faced with such disgusting behaviour, some traffic wardens respond with a merciless taciturnity.
The louder the rant of the traffic offenders, the more acute are the wardens' feelings of pleasure that they, the stakeless, the outcasts, the niggers, are a valued part of the empire of law, and in a position to chastise the arrogance and selfishness of the indigenous people."
