Word: johnson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Many Britons are familiar with that routine, which Johnson has honed in Parliament as MP for the affluent constituency of Henley in southeastern England and as the occasional presenter of a TV game show. Readers not yet acquainted with his signature style will get a flavor of it from this verbatim response to TIME's question about whether he considers himself a conviction politician: "I certainly have a range of convictions. Not for anything serious. God. I don't have convictions, actually, by the way. No, no, no. Sorry, I don't have any convictions in a court...
...everyone gets the joke. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, waiting to address the Tory party conference by video link last fall, watched in bewilderment as Johnson warmed up the crowd with a speech littered with characteristic digressions. "He's fumbling all over the place," hissed the Governator, unaware that his microphone was switched on. Wags in Westminster have since dubbed Johnson "the Fumbulator." He responds with mock humility: "A man not famed for his eloquence found fault with my delivery and general mastery of public speaking. And these are things I obviously have to overcome...
...bigger hurdle for Johnson is to prove that he can do deep as well as droll. In a revealing jest about his party's candidate for mayor, Tory leader David Cameron remarked, "Inside Boris there is a serious, ambitious politician fighting to get out." The London election this May will pit Johnson against another colorful maverick, the incumbent Ken Livingstone, a wily and resilient left-winger who has introduced tolls for cars entering central London and is promising to boost the capital's stock of affordable housing. Johnson has not yet revealed a detailed manifesto but speaks of increased "financial...
...father Stanley Johnson, an environmentalist and a former Member of the European Parliament, calls this "the fight against crooks and nannies looking into nooks and crannies." Like son, like father. Both Johnsons make a humor pit stop every few minutes. But, says Johnson senior, beneath the comic exterior, his son has a "solid, philosophical outlook" and a "real, substantial core of belief...
...reports there expressed worries that he might squander his potential by spreading himself too thin. It's a habit he's maintained in overlapping careers as a journalist, novelist, poet, classical historian, media personality and politician. "My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it," says Johnson, who became editor of the venerable British political magazine the Spectator in 1999 and swiftly reneged on a promise to Conrad Black, its proprietor at the time, not to seek a parliamentary seat. Johnson biographer Andrew Gimson later interviewed Black, whose name is now something of a byword for double...