Boris Johnson won the Tory leadership election today and will enter Downing Street tomorrow after a comprehensive victory in the Tory leadership election.
The man who said he wanted to be ‘King of the World’ when he was a child has now achieved the top political post in the United Kingdom.
It comes via a long journey that has taken in two Commons’ seats, two terms as London mayor – including an infamous zip wire ride – and a controversial turn as foreign secretary.
But he faces an enormous challenge to sort out the Brexit mess, to heal a bitterly divided Conservative Party and also apply the same balm to the country as a whole, which has also become polarised over the result of the 2016 referendum.
Mr Johnson addressed the audience after being unveiled as Tory leader today in central London
Here we look at Mr Johnson’s path to becoming Tory leader and, tomorrow afternoon, prime minister.
Early life: Eton and Oxford
Boris Johnson was born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson in New York on June 19, 1964.
His East Coast birth gave him joint US/UK citizenship.
Known as Al by his close family, his father is Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative MEP. He and Boris’s mother Charlotte divorced in 1979.
His younger brother Jo is the Tory MP for Orpington and his sister Rachel is a journalist and commentator who was a Change UK candidate at the European elections in May. He also has another brother, Leo.
Mr Johnson while a child at the prestigious Eton College in Berkshire
Among his ancestors he counts a Turkish secular Muslim journalist, Ali Kemal, who he has referenced during his leadership campaign as a sign of his One Nation Conservative credentials.
He received a prestigious education at Eton after winning a scholarship. It was here that he started calling himself Boris rather than Alexander.
Among his close friends were Darius Guppy, a businessman later convicted of fraud, and Charles Spencer, the brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
Boris Johnson with father Stanley during his leadership campaign.
The Johnson clan in 2012 during the London mayoral election campaign. Left to right: Leo, Rachel, Boris, Jo, Marina Wheller (Boris’s now estranged wife), Stanley
Mr Johnson with his sister Rachel and friends at Viscount Althorp’s 21st birthday party in the 1980s
He went on to study classics at Balliol College, Oxford in the late 1980s, where among his contemporaries were many students who would go on to become leading politicians, including David Cameron and George Osborne.
All three were part of the infamous Bullingdon Club, a debauched clique of upper class students which gained a reputation for riotous drunken antics.
This may have been a contributory factor in his gaining a 2:1 degree rather than first class honours.
After leaving Oxford he married his first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen.
Journalism career
Mr Johnson left Oxford and embarked on a career in journalism after landing a job at the Times. But it was a short-lived appointment – he was swiftly fired for making up a quote.
Mr Johnson while working for the Daily Telegraph
He claimed an esteemed academic had said King Edward II and his male lover Piers Gaveston would have had liaisons in a newly discovered palace – which was not built until long after Gaveston has been murdered.
He enjoyed more success at the Telegraph, where he became Brussels corespondent and a columnist.
His critical dispatches from the EU capital have been credited with helping shape euroscepticism in the UK.
But he also attracted controversy.
In 1990 a phone call between him and old Eton friend Darius Guppy was recorded. In it he agreed to give Guppy the contact details of a News of the World reporter investigating his business affairs so he could give him ‘a couple of black eyes’.
The attack never happened and Mr Johnson said in 2013 he was just ‘humouring’ an old acquaintance.
However he did not make friends everywhere. His former boss at the paper, Max Hastings, wrote in the Daily Mail in 2012: ‘If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in Buenos Aires or suchlike, because it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country.’
Mr Johnson with former Telegraph editor Max Hastings, who this year branded him a ‘cavorting charlatan’
And this year he branded Mr Johnson a ‘cavorting charlatan’ in an article for the Mirror.
Mr Johnson went on to become editor of the Tory bible, the Spectator magazine, before setting his sights on political as well as journalistic power.
MP for Henley
Mr Johnson was elected MP for Henley at the 2001 General Election as the Tories tried to recover from the landslide election four years earlier.
The seat had previously been held by Michael Heseltine, the trade minister who tried and failed to replace Margaret Thatcher as prime minister.
Mr Johnson rugby tackled Maurizio Gaudina during a England v Germany ‘Legends Match’ for charity at the Madjeski Stadium, Reading in 2006
Mr Johnson and then wife Marina Wheeler at the 2001 election, when he became MP for Henley in Oxfordshire
Mr Johnson was sacked as an arts minister after his affair with Petronella Wyatt was revealed in 2004
He would go on to hold the seat until 2008 but again his time there was controversial.
He was made an arts minister by then Tory leader Michael Howard but was sacked after it was revealed he had been in a long-term affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt, who had an abortion after falling pregnant.
He remained unbowed however and hit the headlines again in 2006 when, during a England v Germany ‘Legends Match’ for charity at the Madjeski Stadium, Reading he rugby tackled Maurizio Gaudina.
Despite the furore over his affair he increased his majority at the 2005 General Election before plotting the next stage of his career.
Mayor of London
Mr Johnson really jumped into the public consciousness when he upset the left-wing incumbent mayor of London Ken Livingstone to take on the job in 2008. He would go on to serve two terms in what is regarded as a heavily Labour-orientated city.
Mr Johnson campaigning to be mayor of London in 2008
He beat former Labour MP Ken Livingstone
His time in City Hall included the huge spectacle of the London Olympics in 2012, which was where Boris managed to make a huge spectacle of himself.
Dangling helplessly from a zip-wire while waving British Union Jack flags, his attempt to publicise a party in one of London’s parks became one of the most memorable non-sporting moments of the games
Dangling helplessly from a zip-wire while waving British Union Jack flags, his attempt to publicise a party in one of London’s parks became one of the most memorable non-sporting moments of the games.
‘It’s going well … Get me a ladder,’ the portly then-London Mayor jovially shouted as the crowds below laughed along after he became stuck.
For most politicians, such a turn of events would be an humiliating embarrassment that could overshadow their careers.
For the man famed for his mop of unruly blond hair and expected to be named as Britain’s next prime minister, it was par for the course.
Later in his tenure he managed to gaff in front of the cameras again. Mr Johnson, a keen rugby player in his youth, wiped out a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy during what was meant to be a lighthearted game in Tokyo during a 2015 trade mission.
Mr Johnson, a keen rugby player in his youth, wiped out a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy during what was meant to be a lighthearted game in Tokyo during a 2015 trade mission
The boy was unharmed by the robust challenge
Mr Johnson has made much of his time in London during the campaign to become prime minister, hailing his role int he Olympics and also his action to decrease the crime rate.
But he also attracted controversy. His opponents accused him of being profligate with public money, backing expensive projects like the Routemaster-style Boris Buses, the Emirates Airline cable car, his proposed Thames Estuart airport dubbed ‘Boris Island’ and a plan for a Garden Bridge across the Thames that was pulled after receiving tens of millions of pounds of public cash.
He came to wider public attention with his star turns on the BBC’s popular satirical TV quiz show ‘Have I Got News For You’.
MP for Uxbridge, Vote Leave and Foreign Secretary
His double-term in London set up Mr Johnson for a return to the Commons, with his name already being touted as a potential leader.
He stood in the suburban London seat of Uxbridge in 2015, taking a 10,000 majority.
The following year he made himself the centre of attention in the EU referendum campaign as he wavered over whether to back Leave or Remain in the upcoming EU referendum.
He eventually revealed he would back Leave alongside then ally Michael Gove. This included posing controversially in front of a bus pledging to give the NHS £350 million a week that was sent instead to Brussels.
Mr Johnson controversially campaigned in front of a bus pledging to give the NHS £350million a week that was sent instead to Brussels
The campaign pledge was later the foundation of a short-live legal case against Mr Johnson by Remainers
After the famous Leave win and David Cameron’s resignation he was a favourite to step into Downing Street after his old Eton and Oxford chum.
But his campaign was rocked when his chief of staff Mr Gove walked out and announced he would stand against him. It prompted Mr Johnson to drop out of the race and Theresa May would eventually win.
But he was immediately in Government as a surprise appointment to foreign Secretary.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has languished in a Tehran jail since 2016, which some blame being levelled at Mr Johnson
His two year term in the role was much criticised, mainly over his handling of the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker jailed for spying in Tehran in 2016.
He told the House of Commons in November 2017 that she had been in the country training journalists, which was seized on as proof of her guilt by the hardline Islamic regime. She had in fact been on holiday visiting relatives.
She remains in custody to this day.
Mr Johnson was in post through the first two years of Theresa May’s attempts to hammer out a Brexit deal.
By the summer of 2018 rumours of growing Cabinet discontent over the proposed deal reached fever-pitch.
After Mrs may published her Cheqers Agreement white paper in July last year, Brexit Secretary David Davis and his deputy Steve Baker quit in protest.
Days after the hardline Brexiteers had walked, Mr Johnson also quit.
Leadership campaign and Carrie Symonds
Mr Johnson became a vocal critic of Mrs May from the backbenches amid consistent rumours that he would challenge her for the leadership.
She faced a no confidence vote in December last year but survived, narrowing his opportunity to run.
In the meantime Mr Johnson was back in the headlines because of his private life.
His second marriage to barrister marina Wheeler, the mother of four of his children, finally collapsed as it was revealed he was in a relationship with Carrie Symonds, 31 , a former Tory communications director.
Mr Johnson’s relationship with Carrie Symonds was revealed earlier this year. He is in the middle of divorcing wife Marina Wheeler
Their relationship, rows and whether she will follow him to Downing Street have made many headlines.
By May this year, after three failed attempts to get a Withdrawal Agreement through parliament, Theresa May’s time was up and she laid out a time table to quit as Tory leader and Prime Minister.
Boris was one of more than a dozen candidates to stand in the largest ever field for a leadership election.
And for a man who loves the limelight he ran a very, very covert campaign, initially only appearing in public when he had to, at hustings and debates he could no avoid.
It led to accusations that he was hiding away in order to avoid making a gaff that could harm his chances of winning.
It did not mean that there were not some outre photo ops.
By heck: Boris posed with a string of bangers in the leadership campaign
He also got his hands dirty shearing a sheep in Yorkshire
But the smell of the wool left a lot to be desired
Photographs of him posing with a string of Heck sausages while campaigning in Yorkshire sparked a social media campaign for a boycott of the firm by Remain supporters.
And he was willing to get his hands dirty shearing a sheep the same day at Nosterfield farm, near Ripon.
Mr Johnson’s father Stanley was at today’s unveiling of the leadership vote, in which his son won 66 per cent
Mr Johnson was always the favourite to win the election, ahead in all the polls and 1/100 on with the bookies this week.
And he duly won in the result announced today at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in central London.
With his father and siblings looking on he won with 66 per cent of the vote.
And tomorrow he will formally enter 10 Downing Street, where he faces a battle to unravel the mess that is Brexit.