Boris Johnston Word on the Week 27th July 2019.
One name has dominated the news this week, that of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to spell it out in full. The media, always looking for a nick-name, have reverted to his old school moniker of ‘Bojo’. An enormously popular candidate he romped home on Tuesday with a 2/3rds majority as the UK’s latest Prime Minister.
The eldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative MEP, Boris was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. On his father’s side his great grandfather was the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. His father’s maternal grandmother, Marie Louise de Pfeffel, was a descendent of Prince Paul of Württemberg and through Prince Paul, Johnson is a descendent of King George II of Great Britain!
His mother, Charlotte, was the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a prominent barrister and president of the European Commission of Human Rights. She was an artist. Charlotte gave birth to Boris in New York in 1964. He was the eldest of four children.
Soon after Boris was born the family returned to England. He was educated first at the European School in Brussels, Ashdown House and then at Eton College, where he was a King’s Scholar. He read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, as a Brackenbury scholar, and was elected President of the Oxford Union. He was a contemporary of David Cameron, a former Prime Minister, who introduced the ill thought out referendum on Brexit.
Regarding his personal life his first marriage lasted a year being dissolved in 1993. Later that year he married Marina Wheeler, a barrister, the daughter of journalist and broadcaster Sir Charles Wheeler and his Sikh Indian wife, Dip Singh. They have two boys and two girls. Last year Johnson and Wheeler announced their separation.
Boris was first elected to parliament in 2001 as MP for Henley. He had a number of high-profile jobs but was dismissed in November, 2004 over accusations that he lied to the Prime Minister about a four-year extramarital affair with Petronella Wyatt, The Spectator’s New York correspondent and former deputy editor. He was reinstated by David Cameron who had become Prime Minister but had become embroiled in another extramarital affair which Cameron chose to ignore.
During the period 2008/15 he was a flamboyant Lord Mayor of London returning to parliament as the candidate for Uxbridge. He was accused of sexism, corruption and racism during his political career but his adolescent behaviour has popular appeal. More than most he seems to be intoxicated with the oxygen of power without first having considered the implications of what he is saying.
Our standard of truth is the Bible (St John Chapter 17 verse 17). It is not simply the absence of lies it is something to be lived. It is incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ (St John Chapter 14 verse 6). It was revealed in Thomas’s response to meeting the risen Christ “My Lord and my God” (St John Chapter 20 verse 28). The truth is lived out in Jesus – and by his grace in those who have committed their lives to him.