Alexander Boris Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in New York City. His family returned to the United Kingdom soon afterwards. Johnson suffered from severe deafness as a child and underwent several operations.
He was a King's Scholar at Eton College, and afterwards he read classics at Balliol College, Oxford. There, he was made president of the Oxford Union.
Upon leaving Oxford University, he worked for a week as a management consultant and he then joined The Times newspaper as a trainee reporter. Within a year, he was fire for falsifying a quotation.
Journalistic Career of Boris Johnson
In 1987, he joined The Daily Telegraph as a leader and feature writer. From 1989 to 1994, he was the paper's European correspondent. From 1994 to 1999, he served as the assistant editor at paper.
He carried on working The Daily Telegraph and from 1994 to 1995, he was also a political commentator at The Spectator. Between 1999 and 2005, Johnson served as the editor of The Spectator.
Boris Johnson's Political Career
After being defeated in the 1997 general election, he was elected the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in 2001. In 2004, he was elected to the front bench position of Shadow Minister for the Arts. From November 2003, he was also the vice-chairman of the Conservative Party.
On 9 December 2005, the new Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, made Johnson the Shadow Minister for Higher Education.
On 16 July 2007, after a number of days of speculation, Johnson announced that he would stand for election as the Conservative Party nomination for the Mayor of London. He was confirmed as the Conservative Party nominee on 27 September 2007 after gaining 75% of the primary vote. He launched his election campaign in March 2008 pledging to reduce crime and reduce spending.
One of his more unusual pledges was that he would scrap the controversial articulated buses and replace them with updated versions of the classic "Routemaster" buses.
On 2 May 2008, it was announced that Johnson has won the election with 1,168,738 over his Labour Party opponent, and then-Mayor of London, Ken Livingston's 1,028,966. At the same time, he resigned from his post as the MP for Henley.
As Mayor of London, Johnson has already introduced a number of new laws, including the banning of alcohol on public transport.
Throughout his journalistic and political career, Johnson has appeared on a large number of television shows including, Have I Got New For You, the motoring program Top Gear and Who Do You Think You Are, a program where a public figure's ancestral roots are traced.
Boris Johnson is married to Marina Wheeler, and has been since 1993.
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