Boris Johnson is already celebrating tonight as the Conservatives stomp to victory and he gets set to stay in office for years.
The Prime Minister’s gamble on a snap election looks to have paid off with the Tories likely to win a sizeable majority, according to a dramatic exit poll tonight.
But it didn’t always look that way – Boris has been called Britain’s flawed ‘Marmite man’ – a philandering MP with a volatile personal life who embarked on extra-marital affairs and allegedly got two of his mistresses pregnant.
He enjoyed a gilded path to Number 10 but in the process drew attention to his messy private life; two ex-wives, a pole-dancing technology advisor, a love-child and a relationship with a woman 24 years younger.
His tangled love life notoriously saw him locked out of his own home in front of TV cameras by his angry wife Marina, over allegations he had cheated on her in 2004.
Just 12 days after finalising his divorce from his first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen, he married his second wife, barrister Marina Wheeler in 1993.
But in 2018 they announced that they, too, were divorcing after Marina learned of her husband’s fondness for Carrie Symonds, 31.
This makes him the first PM in modern times to divorce while in Downing Street.
But now it seems any skeletons emerging from his closet have failed to deter the voters and simply amuse, rather than horrify.
Tonight Mr Johnson celebrates his rise from journalist at the Daily Telegraph to Number 10, via appearances on Have I Got News For You and a stint as the ziplining Mayor of London.
The Telegraph journalist and editor of the Spectator; Johnson pictured in 2000
Mayor: Johnson, then Mayor of London and MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip at Downing Street on May 11, 2015 – some four years later it would become his home
Boris Johnson and then-wife Marina at the The Ark Charity Gala in 2009
Johnson with girlfriend Carrie Symonds following his keynote speech on day four of the Conservative Party Conference at Manchester Central on October 2, 2019
Max Hastings, Johnson’s editor in his days as a young reporter at the Daily Telegraph, dubbed him a ‘foot-in-the-mouth artist; serial bonker and manic self-publicist’.
Mr Johnson married Oxford University sweetheart Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987, but they divorced in 1993 after he cheated on her with Marina.
In 2004, his four-year affair with journalist and society author Petronella Wyatt, the daughter of Labour grandee Lord Wyatt, came to public attention.
She later told how she had an abortion and suffered a miscarriage.
Mr Johnson was sacked from his role as shadow arts minister by then-Tory leader Michael Howard for lying about the relationship.
Mr Howard’s spokesman said at the time the issue was one of ‘personal morality’.
Mr Johnson dismissed the allegations as ‘an inverted pyramid of piffle’.
In 2006 the News of the World reported Mr Johnson had had an affair with journalist Anna Fazackerley.
His wife threw her husband out of their home, but the couple later patched things up.
In 2009, Boris fathered a child with art consultant Helen Macintyre.
The Court of Appeal ruled in 2013 that the public had a right to know about Boris’s philandering past.
Once again, his wife kicked him out of the family home before taking him back.
But September 2018 heralded the final straw for the mother of the MP’s four older children – Lara, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches, and Theodore Apollo.
When his affair with Carrie Symonds came to light, he and Marina finally filed for divorce.
Their daughter Lara Johnson, who is only five years younger than Miss Symonds, reportedly branded her father a ‘selfish b******’.
Claims that Mr Johnson squeezed the thigh of journalist Charlotte Edwardes, at a private lunch at The Spectator magazine’s HQ shortly after he became editor in 1999, overshadowed his first Conservative Party conference as PM.
Then earlier this year, Boris’s relationship with his American former pole dancer ‘technology advisor’ Jennifer Arcuri came under public scrutiny over allegations she received favourable treatment for her business ventures during his eight-year stint as mayor of London.
The US businesswoman was at the centre of a storm over her relationship with Boris, with accusations of impropriety over the public money her company received when he was mayor of London.
Ms Arcuri said Mr Johnson had never showed her ‘any favouritism’ and denied newspaper reports he wrote her a letter of recommendation for a £100,000-a-year tech job.
Mr Johnson married Oxford University sweetheart Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987, but they divorced in 1993 after he cheated on her with Marina
When Boris Johnson’s affair with Carrie Symonds came to light last September, he and his wife Marina Wheeler filed for divorce
Mr Johnson now lives at Number 10 with Carrie since leaving his second wife Marina Wheeler (pictured together in 2015) last year
The couple pictured together in London on January 18, for the first time after Mr Johnson’s second marriage ended following rumours of a relationship with Miss Symonds
In June, neighbours witnessed a blazing row between Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds which resulted in police being called to the couple’s home in the early hours.
Downstairs neighbours called police to Carrie Symonds’ south London flat in a converted Victorian house over the loud row between the pair.
A recording of the row reveals Mr Johnson, 55, who lives at his partner’s flat, shouted at Miss Symonds to ‘get off my f***ing laptop’ before a loud crashing noise was heard.
Tonight however, it seems the vast majority of Conservative supporters do not give a fig about Johnson’s love life or misdemeanors.
In May this year, a Survation opinion poll for the Daily Mail showed that some 83 per cent of Tories did not think his two broken marriages made him unfit to be prime minister.
Only 12 per cent of Tories said they did disqualify him.
Labour voters were similarly forgiving: 71 per cent said his marital record did not disbar him from No 10.
If borne out by the actual results, the Prime Minister will return to Number 10 on Friday with a considerable majority which will, in theory, enable him to drive through his Brexit deal and take the UK out of the European Union next month.
It would represent the largest majority for a Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
The result will be seen as a triumph for his tightly-controlled election campaign, which was largely gaffe-free until the final week.
Boris Johnson and Jennifer Arcuri pictured together on October 14, 2014. The PM faced intense scrutiny about their relationship
Lean machine: Boris cuts a much slimmer, smarter figure under the influence of Carrie Symonds. Left: Boris in 2013. Right: In 2019
Mr Johnson – who once dismissed reports of his cheating as ‘an inverted pyramid of piffle’ – married Oxford University sweetheart Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987 (pictured), but they divorced in 1993 after he cheated on her with Marina
In 2004, his four-year affair with journalist and society author Petronella Wyatt (pictured), the daughter of Labour grandee Lord Wyatt, became public
Mr Johnson fathered a child with art consultant Helen Macintyre (pictured). It is understood Miss Wheeler again kicked him out of the family home
City lawyer Miss Wheeler (pictured), 54, a Cambridge-educated QC and the daughter of veteran BBC correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler, put up with her husband’s infidelity for years
Johnson with his ex-wife Marina Wheeler and daughter Lara Johnson as she votes for the first time in May 2012
Mr Johnson entered the election without a majority – having just 298 Tory MPs – after some quit the party and he withdrew the whip from others when they rebelled over Brexit.
Amid reports of ‘mega’ turnout and unprecedented levels of tactical voting by Remainers, Tories had become increasingly nervous that victory could somehow slip from their grasp, despite a slew of polls during the campaign having given them a double-digit advantage.
But the fears seem to be unfounded, as the party’s mantra of ‘get Brexit done’ swung previously staunch Labour supporters.
The pound immediately jumped 3 per cent against the US dollar on the news, as markets breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of clarity on Brexit and no anti-business Labour government.
Mr Johnson was fighting for votes to the last minute tonight, tweeting to urge supporters to cast their ballots as he campaigned in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat.
If confirmed, the exit poll numbers wold represent a majority of 86 for the Tories.
That would be the biggest since Margaret Thatcher’s landslide of 1987 – which was also driven by blue-collar Tory voters.
By contrast Labour’s 191 would be its worst since the 1930s – leaving his dream of a socialist Britain in ruins.
It would outdo even the showing by Mr Corbyn’s left-win hero Michael Foot, who was famously put to the sword by Margaret Thatcher with just 209 seat in 1983.