This archive report was first published on 23 July 2019.
Published on July 23, 2019, Boris Johnson, a 55-year-old former foreign secretary and London mayor, has been embroiled in several high-profile controversies throughout his career.
Early Career Blunders ¶
Johnson's early career was marked by a series of blunders, including his dismissal from The Times newspaper in 1987 for fabricating a quote in an article about King Edward II.
"It was awful -- I remember a deep, deep sense of shame and guilt," he told BBC television when recalling the incident in 2013.
Personal Scandals ¶
Johnson's personal life has also been marred by scandals, including his dismissal from his roles as shadow arts minister and Conservative Party vice-chairman in 2004 for lying about an extramarital affair.
Johnson had initially dismissed the tabloid allegations of a four-year fling with another woman as "an inverted pyramid of piffle".
"It is a wretched and lamentable day when people's private lives can become used in political machinations," Johnson said at the time.
Mayoral Fiascos ¶
Johnson's tenure as London mayor from 2008 was marked by several high-profile fiascos, including his failed bid to build a garden bridge over the River Thames.
The project, which cost a whopping £53.5 million, was scrapped in 2017 on the advice of an independent review.
Johnson later claimed "not a single penny of taxpayers' money" was wasted on the plan while he was in office and blamed his successor, Sadiq Khan, for its demise.
Brexit Controversies ¶
Johnson, a prominent figure in the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, has been accused of promoting misleading claims about the UK's EU contributions.
He has stood by the claim that Britain would no longer have to make weekly payments of £350 million to the EU, despite criticism that the figure was grossly misleading.
Diplomatic Maelstrom ¶
Johnson's tenure as foreign secretary from 2016 to 2018 was marked by several high-profile gaffes, including his comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman being held in a Tehran jail.
Johnson stated that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists in Iran, in what he later described as a "slip of the tongue".
