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Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (, born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023, having previously been MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008.

Johnson attended Eton College and studied Classics at Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1986. In 1989, he became the Brussels correspondent - and later political columnist - for The Daily Telegraph, and from 1999 to 2005 he was the editor of The Spectator. Following his election to Parliament in 2001, he became a member of the shadow cabinets of Michael Howard and later David Cameron. Johnson was elected Mayor of London in 2008 and resigned from the House of Commons. He was re-elected mayor in 2012. In the 2015 general election he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and the following year did not seek re-election as mayor. Johnson was a prominent figure in the successful Vote Leave campaign for Brexit in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. After the referendum, Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him foreign secretary in her cabinet. He resigned from the position in 2018 in protest at both the Chequers Agreement and May's approach to Brexit.

Johnson defeated Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election to succeed May, who resigned after Parliament's repeated rejections of her Brexit withdrawal agreement. Johnson re-opened Brexit negotiations and in early September prorogued Parliament, with the Supreme Court later that month ruling the action to have been unlawful. After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement which replaced the Irish backstop with the Northern Ireland Protocol, but failing to win parliamentary support for the agreement, Johnson called a snap general election to be held in December 2019. In the election, he led the Conservative Party to their largest victory since 1987. On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union and entered a transition period of trade negotiations that led to the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

A decisive event that occurred during Johnson's premiership was the COVID-19 pandemic. The government responded to the pandemic by introducing various emergency powers and measures across the country to mitigate its impact and approved the rollout of a nationwide vaccination programme. He also responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorising foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine. In the Partygate scandal it was found that multiple parties had been held at 10 Downing Street during national COVID-19 lockdowns, and COVID-19 social distancing laws were breached by 83 individuals, including Johnson, who in April 2022 was issued with a fixed penalty notice. The publishing of the Sue Gray report in May 2022 and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led in June 2022 to a vote of confidence in his leadership among Conservative MPs, which he won. In July 2022, revelations over his appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip while knowing of allegations of sexual misconduct against him led to a mass resignation of members of the government and to Johnson announcing his resignation as prime minister. He left office on 6 September and was succeeded by Liz Truss, his foreign secretary. Johnson remained in the House of Commons as a backbencher until he resigned in June 2023, days before the Privileges Committee investigation unanimously found that he had lied to the Commons on numerous occasions.

Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics. His supporters have praised him for being humorous, witty, and entertaining, with an appeal reaching beyond traditional Conservative Party voters, making him an electoral asset to the party. Conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism and bigotry. As prime minister, his supporters praised him for " getting Brexit done", overseeing the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme, which was initially amongst the fastest in the world, and providing global leadership following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His tenure saw several controversies and scandals, and is viewed as the most scandalous premiership of modern times by historians and biographers. Johnson's political positions have been described as one-nation conservative, and commentators have characterised his political style as opportunistic, populist and pragmatic.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to 23-year-old Stanley Johnson, then studying economics at Columbia University, and 22-year-old Charlotte Fawcett, an artist from a family of liberal intellectuals. His birth in the US, a country with jus soli, makes him one of only two British Prime Ministers to have been an American citizen, along with Winston Churchill. Johnson's parents had married in 1963 before moving to the United States. They returned to the UK in September 1964, so that Charlotte could study at the University of Oxford. During this time she lived with her son in Summertown, a suburb of Oxford, and in September 1965 she gave birth to a daughter, Rachel. In July 1965, the family moved to Crouch End in North London, and in February 1966 they relocated to Washington, DC, where Stanley had gained employment with the World Bank. Stanley then took a job with a policy panel on population control, and moved the family to Norwalk, Connecticut, in June. A third child, Leo, was born in September 1967.

The family returned to the UK in 1969, and they settled into West Nethercote Farm, Somerset, Stanley's remote family home in Exmoor. There, Johnson gained his first experiences of fox hunting. His father was regularly absent from Nethercote, leaving Johnson to be raised largely by his mother, assisted by au pairs. As a child, Johnson was quiet, studious, and deaf, resulting in several operations to insert grommets into his ears. He and his siblings were encouraged to engage in intellectual activities from a young age, with high achievement being greatly valued; Johnson's earliest recorded ambition was to be "world king". Having no friends other than their siblings, the children became very close.

In late 1969, the family moved to Maida Vale in West London, while Stanley began post-graduate research at the London School of Economics. In 1970, Charlotte and the children briefly returned to Nethercote, where Johnson attended Winsford Village School, before returning to London to settle in Primrose Hill, where they were educated at Primrose Hill Primary School. A fourth child and third son, Joseph, was born in late 1971.

After Stanley secured employment at the European Commission in April 1973, he moved his family to Uccle, Brussels, where Johnson attended the European School, Brussels I and learnt to speak French. During this time, Charlotte had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised with clinical depression, after which Johnson and his siblings were sent back to the UK in 1975 to attend Ashdown House, a preparatory boarding school in East Sussex. There, he developed interests in rugby, Ancient Greek, and Latin. While there, the teachers' use of corporal punishment appalled him. Meanwhile, in December 1978 his parents' relationship broke down; they divorced in 1980, and Charlotte moved into a flat in Notting Hill, West London, where her children joined her for much of their time.

Eton and Oxford: 1977-1987

As a kid I was extremely spotty, extremely nerdy and horribly swotty. My idea of a really good time was to travel across London on the tube to visit the British Museum.

- Boris Johnson

Johnson gained a King's Scholarship to study at Eton College, a boarding school near Windsor in Berkshire. Arriving in the autumn term of 1977, he began using his middle name Boris rather than his first name Alexander, and developed "the eccentric English persona" for which he became famous. He denounced his Catholic faith and became an Anglican, joining the Church of England. School reports complained about his idleness, complacency, and lateness, but he was popular and well known at Eton.

Johnson's friends were largely from the wealthy upper classes; his best friends being Darius Guppy and Charles Spencer, both of whom later accompanied him at the University of Oxford and remained friends into adulthood. Johnson excelled in English and the Classics, winning prizes in both, and became secretary of the school debating society and editor of the school newspaper, The Eton College Chronicle. In late 1981, he became a member of Pop, a small, self-selecting elite and glamorous group of prefects. Later in Johnson's career it was a point of rivalry with David Cameron, who had failed to enter Pop. After leaving Eton, Johnson went on a gap year to Australia, where he taught English and Latin at Timbertop, an Outward Bound-inspired campus of Geelong Grammar, an independent boarding school.

Johnson won a scholarship to study Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in the study of the Classics, ancient languages, literature, history, and philosophy. Matriculating at the university in late 1983, he was one of a generation of Oxford undergraduates who were later to dominate British politics and media in the second decade of the 21st century; among them David Cameron, William Hague, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Nick Boles. While at Oxford, Johnson participated in college rugby union, playing as a tighthead prop for Balliol College's team for four years. To his later regret, he joined Bullingdon Club, an exclusive drinking society notorious for acts of vandalism on host premises. Many years later, a group photograph including himself and Cameron in Bullingdon Club formal dress led to much negative coverage from the press. He began a relationship with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, cover girl for magazine and daughter of Christie's Education chairman William Mostyn-Owen. She was a glamorous and popular student from his own social background, and they became engaged while at university.

Johnson was popular and well known at Oxford. Alongside Guppy, he edited the university's satirical magazine Tributary. In 1984, Johnson was elected secretary of the Oxford Union, and campaigned unsuccessfully for the career-enhancing and important position of Union President. In 1986, Johnson ran successfully for President, but his term was not distinguished or memorable, and questions were raised regarding his competence and seriousness. At graduation, Johnson was awarded an upper second-class degree, and was deeply unhappy he did not receive a first.

Early career

The Times and The Daily Telegraph: 1987-1994

In September 1987, Johnson and Mostyn-Owen were married in West Felton, Shropshire, accompanied by a duet for violin and viola Allegra e Boris specially commissioned for the wedding from Hans Werner Henze. After a honeymoon in Egypt, they settled in West Kensington, London, where he secured work for a management consultancy company, L.E.K. Consulting; he resigned after a week. In late 1987, through family connections, he began work as a graduate trainee at . Scandal erupted when Johnson wrote an article for the newspaper, on the archaeological discovery of Edward II's palace, having invented a quote for the article which he falsely attributed to the historian Colin Lucas, his godfather. After the editor Charles Wilson learnt of the matter, he dismissed Johnson.

Johnson secured employment on the leader-writing desk of The Daily Telegraph, having met its editor, Max Hastings, while at Oxford University. His articles appealed to the newspaper's conservative, middle-class, middle-aged " Middle England" readership, and were known for their distinctive literary style, replete with old-fashioned words and phrases and for regularly referring to the readership as "my friends". In early 1989, Johnson was appointed to the newspaper's Brussels bureau to report on the European Commission, remaining in the post until 1994. A strong critic of the integrationist Commission president Jacques Delors, he established himself as one of the city's few Eurosceptic journalists. He wrote articles about euromyths such as the EU wanting to ban prawn cocktail crisps and British sausages, and to standardise condom sizes because Italians had smaller penises. He wrote that Brussels had recruited sniffers to ensure that Euro-manure smells the same, and that the Eurocrats were about to dictate the acceptable curve of bananas and the limits on the power of vacuum cleaners, and to order women to return their old sex toys. He wrote that euro notes made people impotent, that euro coins made people sick, and that a plan to blow up the Berlaymont building was in place because asbestos cladding made the building too dangerous to inhabit. Many of his fellow journalists there were critical of his articles, opining they often contained lies designed to discredit the commission. The Europhile Conservative politician Chris Patten later stated at that time Johnson was "one of the greatest exponents of fake journalism". Johnson opposed banning handguns after the Dunblane school massacre, writing in his column "Nanny is confiscating their toys. It is like one of those vast Indian programmes of compulsory vasectomy."

Johnson's biographer, Andrew Gimson, believed these articles made him "one of [Euroscepticism's] most famous exponents". According to another one of his biographers, Sonia Purnell, - who was Johnson's Brussels deputy - he helped make Euroscepticism "an attractive and emotionally resonant cause for the Right", whereas it had been associated previously with the Left. Johnson's articles established him as the favourite journalist of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but Johnson annoyed her successor, the Europhile John Major, who spent a great deal of time attempting to refute what Johnson said. Johnson's articles exacerbated tensions between the Conservative Party's Eurosceptic and Europhile factions. As a result, he earned the mistrust of many party members. His writings were also a key influence on the emergence of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the early 1990s. Conrad Black, then proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, said Johnson "was such an effective correspondent for us in Brussels that he greatly influenced British opinion on this country's relations with Europe".

In February 1990, Johnson's wife Allegra left him; after several attempts at reconciliation, their marriage ended in April 1993. He then entered a relationship with childhood friend Marina Wheeler, who had moved to Brussels in 1990. They were married in May 1993 in Horsham, Sussex. Soon after this Marina gave birth to a daughter. Johnson and his new wife settled in Islington, North London, an area known for its association with the left-liberal intelligentsia. Under the influence of this milieu and of his wife, Johnson moved in a more liberal direction on issues such as climate change, LGBT rights and race relations. While in Islington, the couple had three more children, all given the surname Johnson-Wheeler. They were sent to the local Canonbury Primary School and then to private secondary schools. Devoting much time to his children, Johnson wrote a book of verse, The Perils of the Pushy Parents: A Cautionary Tale, which was published to largely poor reviews.

Political columnist: 1994-1999

Back in London, Hastings turned down Johnson's request to become a war reporter, instead promoting him to the position of assistant editor and chief political columnist. Johnson's column received praise for being ideologically eclectic and distinctively written, and earned him a Commentator of the Year Award at the What the Papers Say awards. Some critics condemned his writing style as bigotry; in various columns he used the words " piccaninnies" and " watermelon smiles" when referring to Africans, championed European colonialism in Uganda and referred to gay men as "tank-topped bumboys".

Contemplating a political career, in 1993, Johnson outlined his desire to stand as a Conservative candidate to be a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the 1994 European Parliament elections. Andrew Mitchell convinced Major not to veto Johnson's candidacy, but Johnson could not find a constituency. He subsequently turned his attention to obtaining a seat in the UK House of Commons. After being rejected as Conservative candidate for Holborn and St. Pancras, his party selected him the candidate for Clwyd South in north Wales, then a Labour Party safe seat. Spending six weeks campaigning, he attained 9,091 votes (23 per cent) in the 1997 general election, losing to the Labour candidate.

Scandal erupted in June 1995 when a recording of a 1990 telephone conversation between Johnson and his friend Darius Guppy was made public. In the conversation, Guppy said that his criminal activities involving insurance fraud were being investigated by News of the World journalist Stuart Collier, and he asked Johnson to provide him with Collier's private address, seeking to have the latter beaten to the extent of "a couple of black eyes and a cracked rib or something like that". Johnson agreed to supply the information, although he expressed concern that he would be associated with the attack. When the phone conversation was published in 1995, Johnson stated that ultimately he had not obliged Guppy's request. Hastings reprimanded Johnson but did not dismiss him.

Johnson was given a regular column in The Spectator, sister publication to The Daily Telegraph, which attracted mixed reviews and was often thought rushed. In 1999, he was also given a column reviewing new cars in the magazine . His behaviour regularly disgruntled his editors; the large number of parking fines that Johnson acquired while testing cars frustrated GQ staff. At The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, he was consistently late delivering his copy, forcing many staff to stay late to accommodate him; some related that if they published without his work included, he would get angry and shout at them with expletives.

Johnson's appearance on an April 1998 episode of the BBC's satirical current affairs show Have I Got News for You brought him national fame. He was invited back on to later episodes, including as a guest presenter; for his 2003 appearance, Johnson received a nomination for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. After these appearances, he came to be recognised on the street by the public, and was invited to appear on other television shows, such as , , Breakfast with Frost, and the political show Question Time.

The Spectator and MP for Henley: 1999-2008

In July 1999, Conrad Black offered Johnson the editorship of The Spectator on the condition he abandon his parliamentary aspirations; Johnson agreed. While retaining The Spectator's traditional right-wing bent, Johnson welcomed contributions from leftist writers and cartoonists. Under Johnson's editorship, the magazine's circulation grew by 10% to 62,000 and it began to turn a profit. His editorship also drew criticism; some opined that under him The Spectator avoided serious issues, while colleagues became annoyed that he was regularly absent from the office, meetings, and events. He gained a reputation as a poor political pundit because of incorrect political predictions made in the magazine. His father-in-law Charles Wheeler and others strongly criticised him for allowing Spectator columnist Taki Theodoracopulos to publish racist and antisemitic language in the magazine.

Journalist Charlotte Edwardes wrote in The Times in 2019 alleging that Johnson had squeezed her thigh at a private lunch in the offices of the Spectator in 1999 and that another woman had told her he had done the same to her. A Downing Street spokesman denied the allegation.

In 2004, Johnson published an editorial in The Spectator after the murder of Ken Bigley suggesting that Liverpudlians were wallowing in their victim status and also "hooked on grief" over the Hillsborough disaster, which Johnson partly blamed on "drunken fans". In an appendix added to a later edition of his 2005 book about the Roman empire, The Dream of Rome, Tell MAMA and the Muslim Council of Britain strongly criticised Johnson for arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be "literally centuries behind" the West.

Becoming an MP

The selection of Boris Johnson ... confirms the Tory Party's increasing weakness for celebrity personalities over the dreary exigencies of politics. Johnson, for all his gifts, is unlikely to grace any future Tory cabinet. Indeed, he is not known for his excessive interest in serious policy matters, and it is hard to see him grubbing away at administrative detail as an obscure, hardworking junior minister for social security. To maintain his funny man reputation he will no doubt find himself refining his Bertie Wooster interpretation to the point where the impersonation becomes the man.

-Max Hastings, London Evening Standard,

Following Michael Heseltine's retirement, Johnson decided to stand as Conservative candidate for Henley, a Conservative safe seat in Oxfordshire. The local Conservative branch selected him although it was split over Johnson's candidacy. Some thought him amusing and charming while others disliked his flippant attitude and perceived lack of knowledge of the local area. Assisted by his television fame, Johnson won the seat in the 2001 general election with a majority of 8,500 votes. Alongside his Islington home, Johnson bought a farmhouse outside Thame in his new constituency. He regularly attended Henley social events and occasionally wrote for the Henley Standard. His constituency surgeries proved popular, and he joined local campaigns to stop the closure of Townlands Hospital and the local air ambulance.

In Parliament, Johnson was appointed to a standing committee assessing the Proceeds of Crime Bill, but missed many of its meetings. Despite his credentials as a public speaker, his speeches in the House of Commons were widely deemed lacklustre; Johnson later called them "crap". In his first four years as MP, he attended just over half of the Commons votes; in his second term, this declined to 45 per cent. He usually supported the Conservative party line but rebelled against it five times in this period. In free votes, he demonstrated a more socially liberal attitude than many colleagues, supporting the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the repeal of Section 28. However, in 2001, Johnson had spoken out against plans to repeal Section 28, saying it was "Labour's appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools". After initially stating he would not, he voted in support of the government's plans to join the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in April 2003 visited occupied Baghdad. In August 2004, he backed unsuccessful impeachment procedures against Prime Minister Tony Blair for " high crimes and misdemeanours" regarding the war, and in December 2006 described the invasion as "a colossal mistake and misadventure".

Although labelling Johnson "ineffably duplicitous" for breaking his promise not to become an MP, Black decided not to dismiss him because he "helped promote the magazine and raise its circulation". Johnson remained editor of The Spectator, also writing columns for The Daily Telegraph and GQ, and making television appearances. His 2001 book, Friends, Voters, Countrymen: Jottings on the Stump, recounted that year's election campaign, while 2003's Lend Me Your Ears collected together previously published columns and articles. In 2004, HarperCollins published his first novel: Seventy-Two Virgins: A Comedy of Errors revolved around the life of a Conservative MP and contained various autobiographical elements. Responding to critics who argued he was juggling too many jobs, he cited Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli as exemplars who combined their political and literary careers. To manage the stress, he took up jogging and cycling, and became so well known for the latter that Gimson suggested he was "perhaps the most famous cyclist in Britain".

Following William Hague's resignation as Conservative leader, Johnson backed Kenneth Clarke, regarding Clarke as the only candidate capable of winning a general election; the party elected Iain Duncan Smith. Johnson had a strained relationship with Duncan Smith, and The Spectator became critical of his party leadership. Duncan Smith was removed from his position in November 2003 and was succeeded by Michael Howard; Howard deemed Johnson to be the most popular Conservative politician with the electorate and appointed him vice-chairman of the party, responsible for overseeing its electoral campaign. In his Shadow Cabinet reshuffle of May 2004, Howard appointed Johnson to the position of shadow arts minister. In October, Howard ordered Johnson to apologise publicly in Liverpool for publishing a Spectator article - anonymously written by Simon Heffer - which said the crowds at the Hillsborough disaster had contributed towards the incident and that Liverpudlians had a predilection for reliance on the welfare state.

In November 2004, tabloids revealed that since 2000 Johnson had been having an affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt, resulting in two abortions. Johnson initially called the claims "an inverted pyramid of piffle". After the allegations were proven, Howard asked Johnson to resign as vice-chairman and shadow arts minister for publicly lying; when Johnson refused, Howard dismissed him from those positions. In July 2005, Who's the Daddy?, a play by The Spectator's theatre critics Toby Young and Lloyd Evans being performed at Islington's King's Head Theatre, satirised the scandal.

Second term

At the 2005 general election, Johnson was re-elected MP for Henley, increasing his majority to 12,793. Labour won the election and Howard stood down as Conservative leader; Johnson backed David Cameron as his successor. After Cameron was elected, he appointed Johnson as the shadow higher education minister, acknowledging his popularity among students. Interested in streamlining university funding, Johnson supported Labour's proposed top-up fees. He campaigned in 2006 to become the Rector of the University of Edinburgh, but his support for top-up fees damaged his campaign, and he came third.

In April 2006, the News of the World alleged that Johnson was having an affair with the journalist Anna Fazackerley; the pair did not comment, and shortly afterwards Johnson began employing Fazackerley. That month, he attracted further public attention for rugby-tackling former footballer Maurizio Gaudino in a charity football match. In September 2006, Papua New Guinea's High Commission protested after he compared the Conservatives' frequently changing leadership to cannibalism in the country.

In 2005, The Spectator's new chief executive, Andrew Neil, dismissed Johnson as editor. To make up for this loss of income, Johnson negotiated with The Daily Telegraph to raise his annual fee from £200,000 to £250,000, averaging at £5,000 per column, each of which took up around 90 minutes of his time. He presented a popular history television show, The Dream of Rome, which was broadcast in January 2006; a book followed in February. A sequel, After Rome, focused on early Islamic history. As a result of his various activities, in 2007, he earned £540,000, making him the third-highest-earning MP that year.

Mayor of London (2008-2016)

Mayoral election: 2007-2008

In July 2007, Johnson announced his candidacy to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London in the 2008 mayoral election. In September, he was selected after gaining 79 per cent of the vote in a public London-wide primary.

Johnson's mayoral campaign focused on reducing youth crime, making public transport safer, and replacing the articulated buses with an updated version of the AEC Routemaster. Targeting the Conservative-leaning suburbs of outer London, it capitalised on perceptions that the Labour Mayoralty had neglected them in favour of inner London. His campaign emphasised his popularity, even among those who opposed his policies, with opponents complaining a common attitude among voters was: "I'm voting for Boris because he is a laugh." The campaign of Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone portrayed Johnson as an out-of-touch toff and bigot, citing alleged racist and homophobic language used in his columns; Johnson responded these quotes had been taken out of context and were intended as satire.

In the election, Johnson received 43 per cent and Livingstone 37 per cent of first-preference votes; when second-preference votes were added, Johnson was victorious with 53 per cent to Livingstone's 47 per cent. Johnson subsequently announced his intention to stand down as MP for Henley.

First term: 2008-2012

After Johnson became mayor, those in City Hall who were deemed too closely allied to Livingstone's administration had their employment terminated. Johnson appointed Tim Parker to be first Deputy Mayor, but after Parker began taking increasing control at City Hall and insisted that all staff report directly to him, Johnson dismissed him. Because of these issues, many in the Conservative Party initially distanced themselves from Johnson's administration, fearing it would be counterproductive to achieving a Conservative victory at the 2010 general election.

During the electoral campaign, Johnson had confided to Brian Paddick he was unsure how he would maintain his lifestyle while relying upon the mayoral salary of £140,000 a year. To resolve this problem, he agreed to continue his Daily Telegraph column alongside his mayoral job, thus earning a further £250,000 a year. His team believed this would cause controversy and made him promise to donate a fifth of his Daily Telegraph fee to a charitable cause providing bursaries for students. Johnson resented this, and ultimately did not pay a full fifth. Controversy erupted when he was questioned about his Daily Telegraph fee on BBC's ; there, he referred to the £250,000 salary as "chicken feed", something that was widely condemned, given that this was then approximately 10 times the average yearly wage for a British worker.

During his first administration, Johnson was embroiled in several personal scandals. After moving to a new house in Islington, he built a shed on his balcony without obtaining planning permission; after neighbours complained, he dismantled it. The press also accused him of having an affair with Helen Macintyre and of fathering her child, allegations that he did not deny. Controversy arose when Johnson was accused of warning the MP Damian Green that police were planning to arrest him; Johnson denied the claims and did not face criminal charges under the Criminal Justice Act. He was accused of cronyism, in particular for appointing Veronica Wadley, a former Evening Standard editor who had supported him, as the chair of London's Arts Council when she was widely regarded as not being the best candidate for the position. He was implicated in the parliamentary expenses scandal, being accused of excessive expenses claims for taxis. His deputy mayor Ian Clement was found to have misused a City Hall credit card, resulting in his resignation. Johnson remained a popular figure in London with a strong celebrity status. In 2009, he rescued Franny Armstrong from anti-social teenagers who had threatened her while he was cycling past them.

Johnson made no major changes to the mayoral system Livingstone developed. He reversed several measures implemented by Livingstone's administration, ending the city's oil deal with Venezuela, abolishing The Londoner newsletter, and scrapping the half-yearly inspections of black cabs, which was reinstated three years later. Abolishing the western wing of the congestion charging zone, he cancelled plans to increase the congestion charge for four-wheel-drive vehicles. He was subsequently accused of failing to publish an independent report on air pollution commissioned by the Greater London Authority, which revealed the city breached legal limits on nitrogen dioxide levels.

Johnson retained Livingstone projects such as Crossrail and the 2012 Olympic Games, but was accused of trying to take credit for them. He introduced a public bicycle scheme that had been mooted by Livingstone's administration; colloquially known as " Boris Bikes", the part privately financed system cost £140 million and was a significant financial loss but proved popular. Despite Johnson's support of cycling in London, and his much-publicised identity as a cyclist, some cycling groups who argued he had failed to make the city's roads safer for cyclists criticised his administration. As per his election pledge, he commissioned the development of the New Routemaster buses for central London. He also ordered the construction of a cable car system that crossed the River Thames between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks.

Johnson's first policy initiative was a ban on drinking alcohol on public transport. At the beginning of his tenure as mayor, Johnson announced plans to extend pay-as-you-go Oyster cards to national rail services in London. A pledge in Johnson's election manifesto was to retain Tube ticket offices, in opposition to Livingstone's proposal to close up to 40 London Underground ticket offices. On 2 July 2008, the Mayor's office announced the closure plan was to be abandoned and that offices would remain open. On 21 November 2013, Transport for London announced that all London Underground ticket offices would close by 2015. In financing these projects, Johnson's administration borrowed £100 million, while public transport fares were increased by 50 per cent.

During his first Mayoral term, Johnson was perceived as having moved leftward on certain issues, for instance, supporting the London Living Wage and endorsing an amnesty for illegal migrants. He tried placating critics who had deemed him a bigot by appearing at London's gay pride parade and praising ethnic minority newspapers. In 2012, he banned London buses from displaying the adverts of Core Issues Trust, a Christian group, which compared homosexuality to an illness. In August 2008, Johnson broke from the traditional protocol of those in public office not publicly commenting on other nations' elections by endorsing Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States.

Relations with police, finance, and the media

Johnson appointed himself chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), and in October 2008 successfully pushed for the resignation of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair after the latter was criticised for allegedly handing contracts to friends and for his handling of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. This earned Johnson great respect among Conservatives, who interpreted it as his first act of strength. Johnson resigned as MPA chairman in January 2010, but throughout his mayoralty was highly supportive of the Metropolitan Police, particularly during the controversy surrounding the death of Ian Tomlinson. Overall crime in London fell during his administration, but his claim that serious youth crime had decreased proved to be false, and he acknowledged the error. Similarly, his claim that Metropolitan Police numbers had increased was characterised as untrue, but the fact-checkers at Full Fact felt that both Johnson's and his critics' positions are defensible. He was criticised for his response to the 2011 London riots; holidaying with his family in British Columbia when the rioting broke out, he did not return immediately to London, only doing so 48 hours after it had begun and addressing Londoners 60 hours thereafter. Upon visiting shopkeepers and residents affected by the riots in Clapham, elements within the crowds booed and jeered him.

Johnson championed London's financial sector and denounced what he saw as "banker bashing" following the financial crisis of 2007-08, condemning the anti-capitalist Occupy London movement that appeared in 2011. He spent much time with those involved in the financial services and criticised the government's 50p tax rate for higher earners. He collected donations from the city's wealthy for a charitable enterprise, the Mayor's Fund, which he had established to aid disadvantaged youths. It initially announced the fund would raise £100 million, but by 2010 it had only spent £1.5 million. He also maintained extensive personal contacts throughout the British media, which resulted in widespread favourable press coverage of his administration. In turn he remained largely supportive of his friends in the media - among them Rupert Murdoch - during the News International phone hacking scandal.

The formation of the Forensic Audit Panel was announced on 8 May 2008. The panel was tasked with monitoring and investigating financial management at the London Development Agency and the Greater London Authority. Johnson's announcement was criticised by Labour for the perceived politicisation of this nominally independent panel, who asked whether the appointment of key Johnson allies to the panel - "to dig dirt on Ken Livingstone" - was "an appropriate use of public funds". The head of the panel, Patience Wheatcroft, was married to a Conservative councillor and three of the four remaining panel members also had close links to the Conservatives: Stephen Greenhalgh (Conservative Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council), Patrick Frederick (Chairman of Conservative Business Relations for South East England and Southern London), and Edward Lister (Conservative Leader of Wandsworth London Borough Council).

Re-election campaign

Up for re-election in 2012, Johnson again hired Crosby to orchestrate his campaign. Before the election, Johnson published Johnson's Life of London, a work of popular history that the historian A. N. Wilson characterised as a "coded plea" for votes. Polls suggested that while Livingstone's approach to transport was preferred, voters in London placed greater trust in Johnson over issues of crime and the economy. During the 2012 Mayoral election, Johnson sought re-election, while Livingstone was selected as the Labour candidate again. Johnson's campaign emphasised the accusation that Livingstone was guilty of tax evasion, for which Livingstone called Johnson a "bare-faced liar". The political scientist Andrew Crines believed that Livingstone's campaign focused on criticising Johnson rather than presenting an alternate and progressive vision of London's future. In 2012, Johnson was re-elected as mayor.

Second term: 2012-2016

London was successful in its bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics while Ken Livingstone was still mayor in 2005. Johnson's role in the proceedings was as the co-chair of an Olympic board which oversaw the games. Two of his actions after taking on this role were to improve transportation around London by making more tickets available and laying on more buses around the capital during the busy period, when thousands of spectators were temporary visitors in London. Johnson was accused of covering up pollution ahead of the games by deploying dust suppressants to remove air particulates near monitoring stations. In November 2013, Johnson announced major changes to the operation of London Underground, including the extension of operating hours to run through the night at weekends. All staffed ticket offices would be closed to save over £40 million a year and replaced with automated ticketing systems.

Johnson had a close friendship with American technology entrepreneur, former DJ and model Jennifer Arcuri, with The Sunday Times describing him as a regular visitor to her flat, and implying they were in a sexual relationship. In 2013, a mayoral fund awarded her company, Innotech, £10,000, followed the next year by Arcuri being awarded £15,000 from a government programme. Johnson intervened to allow her onto three trade mission trips. The Sunday Times said in September 2019 that Johnson failed to declare his personal relationship as a conflict of interest. Later that month, the Greater London Authority referred Johnson and his actions in the matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) "so it can assess whether or not it is necessary to investigate the former mayor of London for the criminal offence of misconduct in public office". The IOPC was involved because the Mayor is also London's police and crime commissioner. The London Assembly began its own investigation but paused it at the IOPC's request to avoid overlap. On 9 November 2019 it was revealed that the IOPC, which had been due to publish a report on its investigation, had decided to do so after the general election of 12 December. The IOPC issued its report in May 2020, concluding that, although there was no basis for any criminal charge, there was evidence that the close relationship between Johnson and Arcuri had influenced decisions by officials. The report found Johnson should have declared an interest concerning Arcuri and that his failure to do this could have breached the London Assembly's code of conduct. On behalf of the London Assembly, the chair of its Greater London Authority Oversight Committee said the committee would now resume its own investigation.

In 2015, Johnson criticised then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's false comments that there were no-go zones in London governed by shariah and inaccessible for non-Muslims. Johnson said Trump was "betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him, frankly, unfit to hold the office of president of the United States", becoming the first senior politician in the UK to declare Trump unfit for office, but rejecting calls for him to be banned from the country. Johnson added that he "would invite [Trump] to come and see the whole of London and take him round the city - except I wouldn't want to expose Londoners to any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump". He later called Trump's comments "ill informed" and "complete and utter nonsense", adding that "the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump". In 2016, he said he was "genuinely worried that he could become president", telling ITV's Tom Bradby of one moment where he was mistaken for Trump in New York as "one of the worst moments" of his life.

Johnson did not run for a third term for Mayor of London and stepped down on 5 May 2016 following the election of former transport minister, Sadiq Khan. A YouGov poll commissioned at the end of Johnson's term revealed that 52% of Londoners believed he did a "good job" as Mayor of London while 29% believed he did a "bad job". In 2016, Sadiq Khan announced that three German-made water cannon, which Johnson had bought for the Metropolitan Police without waiting for clearance from the then-Home Secretary Theresa May, were to be sold, with the proceeds going to youth services. The vehicles proved unsellable and were eventually sold for scrap in 2018 at a £300,000 loss.

Return to Parliament

Johnson initially said that he would not return to the House of Commons while remaining mayor. After much media speculation, in August 2014 he sought selection as the Conservative candidate for the safe seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip at the 2015 general election, becoming the party's candidate in September. In the 2015 general election, Johnson was elected MP. There was much speculation that he had returned to Parliament because he wanted to replace Cameron as Conservative leader and prime minister.

Brexit campaign: 2015-2016

In April 2016, in an article for , in response to a comment by President Barack Obama that Britain should remain in the European Union, Johnson said an "ancestral dislike" of Britain owing to his "part-Kenyan" background may have shaped Obama's views. Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Soames branded the comments "idiotic" and "deeply offensive". Several Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians condemned them as racist and unacceptable. In light of the remark, a King's College London student society revoked a speaking invitation it had extended to him. Conversely, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith and UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage defended his comments.

Johnson supported Vote Leave's statement that the government was committed to Turkish accession to the EU at the earliest possible opportunity, contradicting the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign's view that Turkey "is not an issue in this referendum and it shouldn't be". Vote Leave was accused of implying that 80 million Turks would come to the UK if it stayed in the EU. When interviewed in January 2019, he said he had not mentioned Turkey during the campaign. On 22 June 2016, Johnson declared 23 June could be "Britain's independence day" in a televised debate in front of a 6,000-member audience at Wembley Arena. David Cameron, British prime minister at the time, specifically addressed Johnson's claim, publicly stating, "the idea that our country isn't independent is nonsense. This whole debate demonstrates our sovereignty."

Following the victory of the "Leave" campaign, Cameron resigned as Conservative leader and prime minister. Johnson was widely regarded as the front-runner to succeed him. Johnson announced he would not stand in the Conservative leadership election. Shortly before this, Michael Gove, hitherto a Johnson ally, concluded that Johnson "cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead". The Daily Telegraph called Gove's comments "the most spectacular political assassination in a generation". Johnson endorsed Andrea Leadsom's candidature, but she dropped out of the race a week later, leaving Theresa May to be elected uncontested.

Foreign Secretary: 2016-2018

After May had become Conservative Party leader and prime minister, she appointed Johnson Foreign Secretary in July 2016. Analysts saw the appointment as a tactic to weaken Johnson politically: the new positions of " Brexit secretary" and international trade secretary left the foreign secretary as a figurehead with few powers. Johnson's appointment ensured he would often be out of the country and unable to organise and mobilise backbenchers against her, while forcing him to take responsibility for problems caused by withdrawing from the EU.

Some journalists and foreign politicians criticised Johnson's appointment because of his history of controversial statements about other countries. His tenure in the role attracted criticism from diplomats and foreign policy experts. A number of diplomats, FCO staff and foreign ministers who worked with Johnson compared his leadership unfavourably to previous foreign secretaries for his perceived lack of conviction or substantive positions on British foreign policy issues. Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt said: "I wish it was a joke." A senior official in Obama's government suggested Johnson's appointment would push the US further towards Germany at the expense of the Special Relationship with the UK. On one occasion Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi walked out of a meeting with Johnson after a meeting did not "get beyond the pleasantries".

Johnson's visit to Turkey from 25 to 27 September 2016 was somewhat tense because he had won Douglas Murray's offensive poetry competition about the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, four months earlier. When questioned by a journalist whether he would apologise for the poem, Johnson dismissed the matter as "trivia". Johnson pledged to help Turkey join the EU and expressed support for Erdogan's government.

Johnson supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and refused to block UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, stating there was no clear evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law by Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen. In September 2016, human rights groups accused him of blocking the UN inquiry into Saudi war crimes in Yemen. Given the UK-Saudi alliance, in December 2016, he attracted attention for commenting the Saudis were akin to the Iranians in "puppeteering and playing proxy wars" throughout the Middle East. May said his comments did not represent the government's view.

In November 2017, Johnson told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe - a British-Iranian dual citizen serving a five-year prison sentence in Iran after being arrested for training citizen journalists and bloggers in a BBC World Service Trust project - had been "simply teaching people journalism". Zaghari-Ratcliffe had said that her visit had been made simply for her daughter to meet her grandparents. Facing criticism, Johnson stated he had been misquoted and that nothing he said had justified Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sentence. In May 2018, Johnson backed the Iran nuclear deal framework, despite Donald Trump's withdrawal. Johnson said the deal brought economic benefits to the Iranian people. Johnson described the Gülen movement as a "cult" and supported Turkey's post-coup purges. He said that Turkey's coup attempt "was deeply violent, deeply anti-democratic, deeply sinister and it was totally right that it was crushed".

In April 2017, Johnson said that Gibraltar's sovereignty was "not going to change" after Brexit. Johnson promised while in Northern Ireland that Brexit would leave the Irish border "absolutely unchanged". In May 2017, during the 2017 United Kingdom general election, a woman criticised him for discussing ending tariffs on Indian whisky in a Sikh temple in Bristol ( Sikhism prohibits alcohol use). He later expressed regret that the protester held differing views to his on alcohol.

Johnson visited the islands of Anguilla, and Tortola (in the British Virgin Islands) on 13 September 2017 to confirm the United Kingdom's commitment to helping restore British territories devastated by Hurricane Irma. He said he was reminded of photos of Hiroshima after the atom bomb had landed on it.

In September 2017, he was criticised for reciting lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem while visiting a Myanmar temple; the British ambassador, who was with him, suggested it was "not appropriate". In October 2017, he faced criticism for stating the Libyan city of Sirte could become an economic success like Dubai: "all they have to do is clear the dead bodies away". Johnson did not condemn the actions of the Spanish government and police during the outlawed Catalan independence referendum on 1 October 2017.

Initially favouring a less hostile approach to Russia, Johnson soon backed a more aggressive policy towards Russia. Following the March 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, an act which the UK government blamed on Russia, Johnson compared Vladimir Putin's hosting of the World Cup in Russia to Adolf Hitler's hosting of the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. Russia's Foreign Ministry denounced Johnson's "unacceptable and unworthy" parallel towards Russia, a "nation that lost millions of lives in fighting Nazism". Johnson described the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany as "divisive" and a "threat" that left Europe dependent on a "malign Russia" for its energy supplies.

Johnson condemned the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, comparing the situation with the displacement of Palestinians in 1948. Johnson supported the Turkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting the Syrian Kurds from the enclave of Afrin.

In a September 2017 op-ed, Johnson reiterated the UK would regain control of £350m a week after Brexit, suggesting it go to the National Health Service (NHS). Cabinet colleagues subsequently criticised him for reviving the assertion and accused of "clear misuse of official statistics" by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove. The authority rejected the suggestion that it was quibbling over newspaper headlines and not Johnson's actual words. Following the 2017 general election, Johnson denied media reports he intended to challenge May's leadership. In a February 2018 letter to May, Johnson suggested that Northern Ireland may have to accept border controls after Brexit and that it would not seriously affect trade, having initially said a hard border would be unthinkable.

In March 2018, Johnson apologised for his "inadvertent sexism" after being criticised for calling Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry as "Lady Nugee"; Thornberry was married to Christopher Nugee but did not use his surname. In June, he was reported as having said "fuck business" when asked about corporate concerns regarding a 'hard' Brexit.

Johnson said that US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is a "moment of opportunity" for peace. In June 2018, Johnson accused the UNHRC of focusing disproportionately on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Secret recordings obtained by BuzzFeed News in June 2018 revealed Johnson's dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Theresa May's negotiating style, accusing her of being too collaborative with the European Union in Brexit negotiations. Comparing May's approach to that of the US president Donald Trump - who at the time was engaged in a combative trade war with the EU because it raised tariffs on metal - Johnson said: "Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He'd go in bloody hard ... There'd be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he'd gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It's a very, very good thought." He also called Philip Hammond and the Treasury "the heart of Remain" and accused individuals of scaremongering over a Brexit "meltdown", saying "No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic. It's going to be all right in the end."

During trips to the United States as foreign secretary, Johnson had repeated meetings with Trump adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller, which were held off White House grounds and kept quiet from May. During the meetings, Miller and Johnson "swapped speech-writing ideas and tips".

In April 2018, Johnson travelled to Italy to attend a party at the Palazzo Terranova, an Umbrian villa owned by the former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev and hosted by his son Evgeny. He travelled without security protection or other officials, as Johnson stated to the Liaison Committee in July 2022, and did not document the trip, which led to accusations of Johnson having misled parliament over his attendance of the party. In June 2023, it was revealed that Lord Simon McDonald, the most senior civil servant of his department, was not aware of the trip either. Johnson defended himself against criticism he received after details about the trip became public by stated that "no government business was discussed" at the event as far as he was aware. Lebedev's villa was monitored by the Italian secret service at the time, who, according to a Channel 4 documentary, suspected it to be used for espionage activities. Johnson granted a peerage to Alexander Lebedev's son Evgeny in 2020. The appointment was done against the advice of the MI6, and met with criticism over potential security concerns it posed.

In July 2018, three days after the cabinet had its meeting at Chequers to agree on a Brexit strategy, Johnson, along with Brexit Secretary David Davis, resigned his post.

Return to the backbenches: 2018-2019

By resigning as foreign secretary, Johnson returned to the role of a backbench MP. In July, he delivered a resignation speech, stating that ministers were "saying one thing to the EU about what we are really doing, and pretending another to the electorate". Johnson added that "it is not too late to save Brexit. We have time in these negotiations. We have changed tack once and we can change once again". Buzzfeed reported Johnson had been in contact with Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's former chief adviser. In interviews, Bannon had praised Johnson and said he should challenge Theresa May for the party leadership.

In January 2019, Johnson came under criticism for remarks he had made during the 2016 Leave campaign regarding the prospect of Turkish accession to the European Union; he denied making such remarks. In March 2019, Johnson said that expenditure on investigating historic allegations of child abuse, instead of more police on the streets, was money "spaffed up the wall". A victim, anti-abuse organisations, a police chief and Shadow police minister Louise Haigh strongly criticised this.

Journalism

In July 2018, Johnson signed a 12‑month contract to write articles for the Telegraph Media Group. In August, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACoBA) reported that this employment was a breach of the Ministerial Code. In December, Johnson was ordered to apologise to Parliament for failing to declare £50,000 of earnings. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found the errors were not inadvertent, and that Johnson had failed on nine occasions to make declarations within the rules.

In September 2018, Johnson wrote: "We have opened ourselves to perpetual political blackmail. We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution - and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier." Senior Tories heavily criticised him, with Alan Duncan of the Foreign Office vowing to ensure the comments marked "the political end of Boris Johnson".

In April 2019, the Independent Press Standards Organisation ruled that a claim in a 6 January 2019 article in The Daily Telegraph, "The British people won't be scared into backing a woeful Brexit deal nobody voted for", authored by Johnson, that a no-deal Brexit was "by some margin preferred by the British public" was false, and "represented a failure to take care over the accuracy of the article in breach of Clause 1 (i)" of its guidelines, and required that a correction to the false claim be published in the print edition, and appended to the online version.

2019 Conservative Party leadership election

On 16 May 2019, Johnson confirmed he would stand in the forthcoming Conservative Party leadership election following Theresa May's anticipated resignation. On 7 June, Johnson formally launched his campaign, saying, "we must leave the EU on 31 October. We must do better than the current Withdrawal Agreement that has been rejected three times by Parliament-and let me clear that I am not aiming for a no-deal outcome. I don't think that we will end up with any such thing. But it is only responsible to prepare vigorously and seriously for no deal." On the campaign trail, Johnson warned of "catastrophic consequences for voter trust in politics" if the government pushed the EU for further delays. He advocated removing the backstop from any Brexit deal and replacing it with alternative arrangements. On 25 and 26 August, he announced plans to retain £7 or £9 billion of the £39 billion divorce payment the UK is due to transfer to the EU upon withdrawal.

Johnson initially pledged to cut income tax for earners of more than £50,000 by raising the 40% tax threshold to £80,000, but backed away from this plan in June 2019 after coming under criticism in a televised BBC debate. He also said he planned to raise the level at which low-paid workers start to pay National Insurance.

The members' vote closed on 22 July. The following day, Johnson was elected leader with 92,153 votes (66%) to Hunt's 46,656 (34%).

Premiership (2019-2022)

First term (July-December 2019)

On 24 July 2019, the day following Johnson's election as Conservative Party leader, Queen Elizabeth II accepted Theresa May's resignation and appointed Johnson as prime minister. This made Johnson the second prime minister to be born outside the British Isles, after fellow Conservative Bonar Law, and the first to be born outside British territories. Johnson appointed Dominic Cummings, whom he worked with on the Vote Leave campaign, as his senior advisor.

Brexit policy

In his first speech as PM, Johnson said that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union on 31 October 2019 with or without a deal, and promised to remove the Irish backstop from the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Johnson declared his intention to re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement, but talks did not immediately resume as the EU refused to accept Johnson's pre-condition that the backstop be removed. The government subsequently announced £2.1bn of funding to prepare for a no-deal Brexit on 31 October. On 28 August 2019, UK and EU negotiators agreed to resume regular meetings to discuss the withdrawal agreement.

Also on 28 August 2019, Johnson declared he had asked the Queen to prorogue Parliament from 10 September, narrowing the window in which Parliament could block a no-deal Brexit and causing a political controversy. The Queen at Privy Council approved prorogation later the same day, and it began on 10 September, scheduled to last until 14 October. Some suggested that this prorogation amounted to a self-coup, and on 31 August 2019, protests occurred in towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom. As of 2 September 2019, three separate court cases challenging Johnson's action were in progress or scheduled to take place, and on 11 September, three Scottish judges ruled the prorogation of the UK Parliament to be unlawful. On 12 September, Johnson denied lying to the Queen over suspension of the Parliament, while a Belfast Court rejected claims that his Brexit plans will have a negative impact on Northern Ireland's peace policy. On 24 September, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Johnson's advice to prorogue Parliament was unlawful, and therefore the prorogation was rendered null and of no effect.

When Parliament resumed on 3 September 2019, Johnson indicated he would call a general election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act after opposition and rebel Conservative MPs successfully voted against the government to take control of the order of business to prevent a no-deal exit. Despite government opposition, the Benn Act, a bill to block a no-deal exit, passed the Commons on 4 September 2019, causing Johnson to propose a general election on 15 October. His motion was unsuccessful as it failed to command the support of two-thirds of the House.

In October 2019, following bilateral talks between Johnson and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the UK and EU agreed to a revised deal, which replaced the backstop with a new Northern Ireland Protocol.

First Cabinet

Johnson appointed his Cabinet on 24 July 2019, dismissing 11 senior ministers and accepting the resignation of six others. The mass dismissal was the most extensive postwar Cabinet reorganisation without a change in the ruling party.

Among other appointments, Johnson made Dominic Raab the First Secretary of State and foreign secretary, and appointed Sajid Javid and Priti Patel as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary, respectively.

Loss of working majority

On 3 September 2019, Phillip Lee crossed the floor to the Liberal Democrats following a disagreement with Johnson's Brexit policy. This left the government without a working majority in the House of Commons. Later that day, 21 Conservative MPs, including the Father of the House and former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, and another former Chancellor Philip Hammond, had the party whip withdrawn for defying party orders and supporting an opposition motion. (The whip was restored to 10 former Conservative ministers on 29 October.)

On 5 September 2019, Johnson's brother Jo Johnson resigned from the government and announced that he would step down as MP, describing his position as "torn between family and national interest". Two days later, Amber Rudd resigned as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and from the Conservative Party, describing the withdrawal of the party whip from the MPs as an "assault on decency and democracy".

2019 general election

Second term (December 2019 - September 2022)

Second Cabinet

Johnson appointed Rishi Sunak (right) as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle

Johnson reshuffled his cabinet on 13 February 2020. Five Cabinet ministers were sacked, including the Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith, a decision that was criticised by several politicians and commentators following his success in restoring the Northern Ireland Executive devolved government. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid resigned from the Cabinet after refusing a demand from Johnson and Dominic Cummings that he dismiss his advisers. Javid was replaced as Chancellor by Rishi Sunak; Javid later returned to Johnson's Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in June 2021 following the resignation of Matt Hancock.

Johnson conducted another reshuffle of his cabinet in September 2021. Changes included the dismissal of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson who had received significant criticism for his handling of disruption to education, such as the 2020 exam grading controversy, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dominic Raab was moved from Foreign Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, replacing Robert Buckland in the latter role. Raab was replaced as Foreign Secretary by Liz Truss.

COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a serious crisis within the first few months of Johnson's second term. Throughout the pandemic, Johnson made a number of policy decisions to curb the pandemic some time after the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) advised them, and contradicting his previous pledges and statements. Johnson's non-attendance of five COBR briefings during the early months of the pandemic and the failure of the UK government to prepare for and control the outbreak has been criticised. The UK was amongst the last major[clarification needed ] European states to close schools, ban public events and order a lockdown. This response is thought by some scientists to have contributed to the UK's high death toll from COVID-19, which as of January 2021 was among the highest in the world in total and by population.[needs update ]

Reuters reported that scientists were critical of Johnson both for acting too slowly to stop the spread of COVID-19 and for mishandling the government's response measures, and Politico quoted Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty as saying that an earlier initial lockdown would have significantly lowered the death toll. The published several editorials critical of the policies adopted during the country's public health response. Johnson's public communication over the virus and the UK's test and trace system were also criticised.

On 3 March 2020, Johnson claimed to have shaken hands with COVID-19 patients in hospital on the same day that SAGE had advised the government to warn the public not to shake hands and minimise physical contact, though it was unclear whether the hospital he visited actually contained any coronavirus patients. He continued to shake hands publicly in the following days including on 5 March and 9 March. On 20 March, Johnson requested the closure of pubs, restaurants, gyms, entertainment venues, museums and galleries that evening, though with some regret, saying, "We're taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub." On 23 March, this was strengthened into a COVID-19 lockdown throughout the UK, except for a few limited purposes, backed up by new legal powers.

On 27 March, it was announced that Johnson had tested positive for COVID-19. On 5 April, with his symptoms persisting, he was admitted to a hospital for tests. The next day, his condition having worsened, he was moved to the hospital's intensive care unit; Dominic Raab was appointed to deputise for him. Johnson left intensive care on 9 April, and left hospital three days later to recuperate at Chequers. After a fortnight at Chequers, he returned to Downing Street on 26 April and was said to be chairing a government COVID-19 " war cabinet" meeting. Johnson later said that he had been given emergency oxygen while in intensive care, and that doctors had made preparations in case of the event of his death.

A scandal in May 2020 involved Johnson's chief political advisor Dominic Cummings, who made a trip with his family to Durham during the March 2020 lockdown while experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. Both Cummings and Johnson rejected widespread calls that Cummings resign. Calls for Johnson to dismiss Cummings came from MPs both within and outside the Conservative Party. Johnson's defence of Cummings and his refusal to sack him caused a widespread backlash. This resulted in a loss of confidence in the government and specifically its response to the pandemic, referred to as 'the Cummings effect' in a study in . Concerns were raised in the study that this could affect the public's compliance with pandemic restrictions.

The Johnson ministry was accused of cronyism in their assignment of contracts related to the pandemic response. Procurement of government contracts for key COVID-19 supplies and measures became less transparent as a result of emergency measures which have bypassed the usual competitive tendering process. In October 2020, Johnson conceded that the UK's test and trace system and its specially developed contact tracing app, which had been criticised for their cost and operational issues, had caused "frustrations" and needed improvement.

Johnson reportedly resisted calls from SAGE and within the government to enact a second lockdown throughout September as COVID-19 infections rose. In April 2021, Johnson denied allegations he had said he would rather " let the bodies pile high in their thousands" than enact a second national lockdown on 30 October 2020. The government enacted a second national lockdown on 31 October. Throughout December 2020, COVID-19 cases across the UK rose significantly, putting additional strain on emergency services and hospitals as the Alpha variant spread widely. In response, the government enacted further restrictions to large parts of southern and eastern England and on 21 December shortened a planned household mixing period over Christmas.

After Russia began the world's first COVID-19 vaccination programme on 5 December 2020, Britain began its programme three days later. NHS workers successfully ensured that half of UK adults had received at least their first vaccine dose by 20 March 2021.

In July 2021, Johnson announced that most generalised public health restrictions in England would be lifted and replaced by recommendations. This took place despite an increase in cases driven by the Delta variant.

In September 2021, Johnson was pictured in a cabinet meeting, with "at least 30 people crammed shoulder-to-shoulder", without anyone wearing masks and with all windows apparently closed, contradicting government advice. Johnson was also photographed without a face mask during a visit to a hospital in November, although images showed that he did wear a mask at some points during his visit.

In December 2021, more stringent restrictions for England were put forward by Johnson and the government. The restrictions, called "Plan B", were a partial renewal of previous measures due to the increased incidence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. These proposals included face coverings to be required in more public settings, guidance to work from home wherever possible, and requirements of COVID-19 passports to enter a nightclub or other large venues. The government experienced the largest rebellion of Conservative MPs during Johnson's premiership, in opposition to these measures.

Legislative agenda

At the State Opening of Parliament on 11 May 2021, a range of proposed laws were announced that were expected to be enacted during Johnson's second term. These measures include the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which would restore the royal prerogative to dissolve Parliament; a Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill to combat deplatforming at universities; an Online Safety Bill that would impose a statutory duty of care on online companies and empower Ofcom to block particular websites; and an Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill that would legally recognise animal sentience. Further laws would introduce mandatory voter identification at general elections, reform the national immigration system, and implement a levelling up policy to reduce imbalances between areas.

2021 Downing Street refurbishment controversy

On 27 April Johnson asked the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, to hold a review about the refurbishment. On 28 April, the Electoral Commission announced it had opened a formal investigation into the allegations. On the same day Johnson said that he had not broken any laws over the refurbishment and had met the requirements he was obliged to meet in full. During Prime Minister's Questions, the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, asked: "Who initially paid for the redecoration of his Downing Street flat?"; Johnson responded: "I paid for Downing Street's refurbishment personally."

On 28 May Lord Geidt published a report on the allegations in an annexe to the register of interests. The report concluded that Johnson did not breach the Ministerial Code and that no conflict, or reasonably perceived conflict, of interest arose. However, Lord Geidt expressed that it was "unwise" for Johnson to have proceeded with refurbishments without "more rigorous regard for how this would be funded". Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, wrote to Lord Geidt asking for evidence of the lack of conflict of interest and said that it was "frankly scarcely believable" that Johnson did not know who was funding the refurbishments.

The Electoral Commission reported on 9 December that it found that the Conservative Party had failed to follow the law in not accurately reporting donations to the party from Lord Brownlow and imposed a £17,800 fine on the party. said the commission's report outlined how, in March, all the money paid by Brownlow and his company had been reimbursed, as had the payments made by the Conservative Party and Cabinet Office. Downing Street had said at the time that the full cost of the works had been met personally by the prime minister.

Owen Paterson controversy

In November 2021, Johnson backed a motion to block the suspension of Owen Paterson, a Conservative MP found to have abused his position by the independent standards commissioner after undertaking paid lobbying on behalf of two companies. The motion called for the creation of a new Conservative-majority committee to examine reforms of the standards investigation process. Many Conservative MPs refused to support the motion, and 13 defied a three-line whip to vote against it. Following the announcement by opposition parties that they would boycott the new committee, and faced with a backlash in the media and from MPs of all parties, the government reversed its position and announced that a new vote would take place on whether Paterson should be suspended. Paterson announced his resignation as an MP the same day.

After Paterson resigned, a by-election was held in Paterson's former constituency of North Shropshire. The Liberal Democrat candidate, Helen Morgan, overturned a Conservative majority of nearly 23,000 to win the seat. The 34% swing was seventh largest in United Kingdom by-election history.

Partygate scandal

Downing Street, where some of the gatherings took place[554]

In early December 2021, reports emerged that social gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff in Downing Street had taken place ahead of Christmas 2020 against COVID-19 regulations. Johnson and a spokesperson denied these allegations. Following a leaked video showing Downing Street staff joking about a "fictional party", at a press conference rehearsal recorded days after one alleged party took place, Johnson apologised for the contents of the video and suggested he had been misled but had now ordered an inquiry into whether a party took place and whether rules were broken.

On 10 January 2022, ITV News reported that a planned party had taken place on 20 May 2020, during the first lockdown. ITV had obtained an email sent by principal private secretary Martin Reynolds to staff inviting them to "socially distanced drinks" in the garden of No. 10 and asking them to "bring your own booze". At the time, people outdoors were not allowed to meet more than one person from outside their household. Two eyewitnesses later alleged that Johnson and Symonds attended, contradicting Johnson's insistence in December 2021 that there were "no parties". At first, Johnson did not deny that he attended.

On 12 January 2022, Johnson apologised to MPs in the Commons for "attending an event in the Downing Street garden during the first lockdown", stating he believed it was "a work event". He said that MPs should await the outcome of the independent inquiry into Westminster lockdown parties, led by senior civil servant Sue Gray, which he said "will report as soon as possible". There were immediate calls across the House for Johnson to resign, voiced mainly by the leaders of the opposition parties. Later, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and several other Conservative MPs expressed their agreement.

On 19 January, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford defected from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party. At the end of Prime Minister's Questions, Conservative former minister David Davis called for Johnson to resign, quoting Leo Amery calling on Neville Chamberlain to resign during the Norway Debate in 1940, and saying: "You have sat there too long for all the good you have done. In the name of God, go." Amery's call was itself a reference to Cromwell's dismissal of the Rump parliament.

On 25 January, the Metropolitan Police's chief commander, Cressida Dick, announced that they were commencing investigations into the Downing Street Parties. Dick stated that "potential breaches of COVID-19 regulations" at Downing Street and Whitehall over the last two years would be looked into.

An abbreviated version of the Sue Gray report into the controversy was released on 31 January, where Gray concluded there was a "failure of leadership" over the events that she had examined. The release of the full report was delayed pending the Metropolitan Police's investigation. In early February 2022, four of Johnson's senior aides resigned: Dan Rosenfield (chief of staff), Martin Reynolds (principal private secretary), Munira Mirza (head of policy) and Jack Doyle (director of communications).

In April 2022, Johnson was issued a fixed penalty notice for £50, as police determined that he committed a criminal offence in breaching COVID-19 regulations by attending parties during COVID-19 restrictions. At least 50 such notices would be issued, with other recipients including Johnson's wife and Chancellor Sunak. Johnson therefore became the first prime minister in British history to have been sanctioned for breaking the law while in office. Boris Johnson either knowingly broke the law or did not understand laws he himself had introduced. A total of 83 people received fixed penalty notices related to Partygate gatherings.

According to Downing Street insiders, Johnson was involved in instigating a party on the occasion of Lee Cain leaving Number 10. What had begun as press office drinks became a party after Johnson arrived, gave a speech and poured drinks for staff. Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner said, "If the latest reports are true, it would mean that not only did the prime minister attend parties, but he had a hand in instigating at least one of them. He has deliberately misled the British people at every turn. The prime minister has demeaned his office."

On 19 April 2022, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle decided that MPs would vote, on 21 April, on whether Johnson should be referred to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee to investigate whether he knowingly misled Parliament. This was waved through unopposed on 21 April.

Steve Baker said Johnson's "marvellous contrition... only lasted as long as it took to get out of the headmaster's study". Baker added, "I have to acknowledge that if the prime minister occupied any other office of senior responsibility... he would be long gone."

The Guardian reported that leaflets for the May 2022 local elections referred to candidates as local Conservatives and avoided pictures of Johnson. Following the elections, many leading Conservatives in areas where the Conservatives had done badly were blaming Johnson and calling on Johnson to resign. On 1 June, Lord Geidt said he wanted Johnson to explain why he thought his fixed penalty notice did not show he had broken the ministerial code.

On 6 June, Graham Brady announced that the threshold for a vote on Johnson's leadership had been passed; the vote was scheduled for later that same day.

On 3 March 2023, an interim report from the Commons Select Committee of Privileges said there was evidence that "strongly suggests" breaches of coronavirus regulations would have been "obvious" to Johnson. The report also said "There is evidence that those who were advising Mr Johnson about what to say to the press and in the House were themselves struggling to contend that some gatherings were within the rules". Johnson said none of the evidence showed he "knowingly" misled Parliament, and added that "it is clear from this report that I have not committed any contempt of Parliament". The report stated that the Commons may have been misled on multiple occasions and Johnson "did not correct the statements [at the] earliest opportunity", as an MP would be expected to do. The committee also stated that Johnson had "personal knowledge" over lockdown gatherings in No 10, which he could have disclosed to MPs.

Starmer slur controversy

While speaking in the House of Commons on 31 January 2022, Johnson falsely blamed Starmer for the non-prosecution of serial sex offender Jimmy Savile when Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Starmer was DPP in the years immediately prior to Savile's death but there is no evidence he was involved in the decision to not have him prosecuted. The claim linking the failure of the CPS to prosecute Savile to Starmer originated in 2018 on the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog. Johnson received criticism for the comment and his policy adviser, Munira Mirza, resigned three days later, saying in her resignation letter that Johnson had made "a scurrilous accusation" against Starmer. Julian Smith, the former chief whip, and Simon Hoare were among Conservatives who called for Johnson to apologise. On 3 February, during an interview with , Johnson defended his comments, stating that in 2013, Starmer apologised because the CPS had not investigated Savile; however, Johnson then said: "I totally understand that he [Starmer] had nothing to do personally with those decisions".

Vote of confidence

In the week prior to and throughout the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II in June 2022, it had been speculated that a vote of confidence in Johnson's leadership of the Conservative Party might occur in the near future. On 6 June 2022, the Conservative Party announced that Johnson would face a vote of confidence in his leadership of the party, after at least 54 Conservative MPs wrote no-confidence letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, meeting the threshold required to arrange such a vote. Johnson won the vote, with 211 in favour and 148 against (59% in favour, 41% against). The number of rebel MPs was larger than had been expected. The vote showed more widespread lack of confidence in Johnson than similar votes during the leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. The result was described by Keir Starmer as the "beginning of the end" for Johnson's premiership.

June 2022 by-elections

Following heavy Conservative defeats in the 23 June 2022 by-elections in Wakefield by the Labour Party and in Tiverton and Honiton, by the Liberal Democrats, former party leader Michael Howard called for Johnson to resign, saying: "[Mr Johnson's] biggest asset has always been his ability to win votes but I'm afraid yesterday's results make it clear that he no longer has that ability."

Oliver Dowden, the Co- Chairman of the Conservative Party, resigned saying: "We cannot carry on with business as usual" and "Somebody must take responsibility". Johnson announced that had no intention of changing or resigning; senior Conservatives accused him of increasingly "delusional" behaviour. On 26 June 2022 Johnson said: "At the moment I'm thinking actively about the third term and what could happen then, but I will review that when I get to it." He also claimed that he intended to stay as prime minister until the mid-2030s, although Number 10 later said that he had been joking.

Pincher scandal

Government Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher resigned on 30 June 2022, saying he had "drunk far too much" the night before at the Carlton Club, a private members' club, in St James's, London, and having "embarrassed myself and other people". It was later alleged that he sexually assaulted two men, and he was suspended as a Conservative MP. On 3 July 2022 six new allegations against Pincher emerged, involving behaviour over a decade.

Johnson allegedly referred to Pincher as "handsy" and Cummings said Johnson joked about him being "Pincher by name, pincher by nature" in 2020, leading to calls for Johnson to explain how much he knew about Pincher's behaviour. Ministers initially said that Johnson was unaware of any specific complaints against Pincher when he was appointed as deputy chief whip. The BBC then reported, however, that an official complaint and subsequent investigation into Pincher, while he was at the Foreign Office (July 2019 to February 2020), had confirmed his misconduct, and that Johnson had been made aware of the matter at that time. Sir Simon McDonald, former Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, later said that the prime minister had been briefed "in person" about Pincher.

Mass resignations

On 5 July 2022, Sunak and Javid resigned within minutes of each other, followed over the next 24 hours by 11 other ministers, as well as Conservative MPs from Parliamentary Private Secretary and other Government positions, including the Solicitor General, Alex Chalk; other backbenchers also withdrew their support for Johnson. Many of the MPs involved stated that the Pincher affair had led them to change their minds on the suitability of Johnson to hold the office of prime minister. It was further reported on 6 July that Johnson could face another confidence vote, with members of the 1922 Committee considering changing the rules as soon as that evening to allow this to happen. By 4 p.m. on 6 July, there had been a total of 31 resignations. As of May 2022, the government comprised 122 ministers.

Announcement of resignation

By the morning of 7 July, the newly installed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadhim Zahawi, publicly stated his belief that Johnson should resign. Within hours, the BBC and other news outlets reported Boris Johnson's intention to resign as prime minister, pending a party leadership election by autumn 2022. Johnson announced his resignation at 12.30 pm. Upon reports of his resignation, the pound sterling temporarily strengthened in value, and UK stocks rose. He remained as prime minister until September, while the Conservative Party chose a new leader. During his final Prime Minister's Questions Johnson signed off by saying " hasta la vista, baby".

On 5 September 2022, it was announced that Liz Truss had won the Conservative leadership election. She became prime minister the next day, after formally being appointed by Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle. During his farewell speech outside 10 Downing Street on 6 September 2022 Johnson referred to the Roman statesman Cincinnatus. Some commentators noted that, while, as Johnson said, Cincinnatus returned to his plough, he was also later recalled to power.

Environmental policies

In November 2020, Johnson announced a 10-point plan for a "green industrial revolution", which would include an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, quadruple the amount of offshore wind power capacity within a decade, fund a variety of emissions-cutting proposals, and spurn a proposed green post-COVID-19 recovery. In 2021, the UK government under Johnson's leadership announced plans to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035.

Johnson announced that the UK would join the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by the year of 2030 at the COP26 summit, which the UK hosted. Before the summit, representatives of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth criticised Johnson's comments on plans to introduce "enforceable limits" on carbon emissions for other countries, which they accused of being unsubstantive and his government faced criticism from environmental groups for cutting taxes on domestic air travel, given the environmental impact of aviation.

Foreign policy

Johnson supported the European Union-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas. Johnson's government placed importance on maintaining the " Special Relationship" with the United States. In 2022, his government introduced an asylum deal with Rwanda, whereby people entering the UK illegally would be sent to Rwanda.

Hong Kong and China

Johnson said in July 2019 that his government would be very "pro-China" in an interview with the Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix TV. He voiced support for Chinese president Xi Jinping's infrastructure investment effort, the Belt and Road Initiative, and promised to keep the United Kingdom "the most open economy in Europe" for Chinese investment.

On 3 June 2020, Johnson announced that if China were to continue pursuing the Hong Kong national security law, the UK would offer 350,000 Hong Kong residents who are British National (Overseas) passport holders, and 2.6 million other eligible individuals, the chance to move to the UK, with the possibility of later applying for citizenship. China accused the UK of interfering in its internal affairs.

Johnson declined to describe the Chinese government's treatment of the Uyghur people as "genocide", despite use of the term by the United States. Johnson's government argued that genocide should be decided by the International Criminal Court. Nevertheless, he called what is happening to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as "utterly abhorrent".

Afghanistan

On 8 July 2021, the day after saying he was "apprehensive" about the future of Afghanistan following what was then the impending withdrawal of US troops, whilst announcing the near completion of British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Johnson expressed the view that there was "no military path to victory for the Taliban". A few weeks later, following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, he blamed the United States for the crisis caused by the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, saying that NATO alliance members "could not continue this US-led mission, a mission conceived and executed in support of America, without American logistics, without US air power and without American might".

UK-EU trade negotiation

Following the formal withdrawal from the European Union in January 2020, Johnson's government entered trade negotiations with the EU to agree on their future relationship before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. Fisheries was a major topic of the negotiations. On 16 October 2020 Johnson said that the UK "must get ready" for no trade deal with the EU. With negotiations continuing until days before the deadline, it was announced on 24 December 2020 that a trade deal had been agreed. Entitled the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, it came into force provisionally on 1 January 2021, and formally on 1 May. A fisheries dispute between the UK and France occurred shortly afterwards. Introduction of new UK border checks were delayed until 2022 to minimise the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May 2022, Johnson readied a draft that would unilaterally change parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, citing issues with medical supplies and cuts in VAT. One of the thornier points of contention involves safety regulations for food and plants, an area where the British government is opposed to a closer alignment with existing EU regulations. For its part, the EU has so far rebuffed the idea of changing the text of the treaty to accommodate the British. A unilateral override by the UK would be tantamount to a breach of the agreement. As Johnson sought a more conciliatory tone, sources within the government began to stress that the draft is designed to be an "insurance policy" and in any case would take years to become law.

Russia and Ukraine

Johnson walks on a street of war-hit Kyiv along with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 10 April 2022

In November 2021, Johnson warned that the European Union faces "a choice" between "sticking up for Ukraine" and approving the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline which runs from Russia to Europe.

During the 2021-2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, Johnson's government warned the Russian Government not to invade Donbas. Despite this, Johnson's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told BBC News that British troops were "unlikely" to be deployed. In a phone call to President Vladimir Putin, Johnson urged him to "avoid bloodshed". Johnson and Putin agreed in a phone call to work towards a "peaceful resolution". On 1 February 2022, Johnson arrived in Kyiv on a diplomatic visit. He called the presence of the Russian Armed Forces near the Russia-Ukraine border "the biggest security crisis that Europe has faced for decades". The Kremlin denied that it wanted to attack Ukraine. On 14 February 2022, Johnson warned an invasion of Ukraine could take place within 48 hours. On 20 February 2022, Johnson warned that Russia is planning the "biggest war in Europe since 1945" as Putin intends to invade and encircle the capital of Kyiv. On 21 February 2022, Johnson condemned Russia's diplomatic recognition of two self-proclaimed separatist republics in Donbas.

Johnson condemned the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and ensured the UK joined in international sanctions on Russian banks and oligarchs. He later announced the UK would phase out Russian oil by the end of 2022.

Within Ukraine, Johnson is praised by many as a supporter of anti-Russian sanctions and military aid for Ukraine. The defence secretary Ben Wallace said on 25 April that the UK had provided £200m in military aid to Ukraine. On 3 May, Johnson virtually addressed the Ukrainian Parliament, becoming the first world leader to speak in Ukraine since the invasion. In his speech, he pledged an extra £300m in military aid to Ukraine, praised Ukraine's resistance to Russia as its "finest hour" and said that the West had been "too slow to grasp what was actually happening" prior to Russia's invasion. In July 2022, Johnson warned that it would be a mistake to cease fire and freeze the conflict because that is exactly what Putin wanted. In August 2022, Johnson blamed Vladimir Putin for the emerging global energy crisis, saying that Putin wanted the UK to "buckle" in the face of "eye-watering" energy price rises.

Post-premiership (2022-present)

After stepping down as party leader, Johnson reverted to being an ordinary backbench MP. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Johnson took part in Charles III's Accession Council, and many other funeral-related events. As a former prime minister, Johnson, with his wife Carrie, attended Elizabeth II's state funeral on 19 September 2022.

After Liz Truss announced her resignation as Conservative Party leader on 20 October 2022, Johnson sought support from MPs to run in the subsequent leadership election, and received support from several cabinet members. Three days later, he announced that he would not stand, stating that he would not have enough support from MPs to govern effectively, even though it has been confirmed that he did receive more than the 100 nominations required to stand in a ballot against Rishi Sunak.

In January 2023, a Savanta ComRes poll for The Independent found 63% of voters did not want Johnson to return as prime minister. 58% believed Johnson should give up his seat in Parliament if the Commons Privileges Committee investigation found he lied over Partygate.

On 9 June 2023, the publication of his 2022 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours led to a public feud with Rishi Sunak. Johnson supporter Nadine Dorries announced that she was resigning as an MP due to not being included as a peer on the published honours list.

The same day, after receiving a confidential report from a committee of the House of Commons that was looking into whether he had lied to Parliament over lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson announced his resignation as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. This was following his reselection as a candidate for his seat in March 2023. His resignation statement accused the Committee of bias and said he is "not alone in thinking that there is a witch-hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result". Johnson's reaction was labelled as "Trumpian" by some of his former Conservative allies. His resignation became effective on 12 June when the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed Johnson Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, a procedural device which allows an MP to resign from the House of Commons. Within 24 hours, fellow MP Nigel Adams also resigned from the House of Commons.

On 15 June, the Commons Privileges Committee published their report, which concluded that Johnson lied to and deliberately misled the House of Commons over Partygate, misled the Committee themselves during the hearing, and acted in contempt of the Committee itself through a "campaign of abuse and intimidation". The report noted that had Johnson still been a Member of Parliament, the Committee would have recommended he be suspended from Parliament for 90 days (for context, the Recall of MPs Act 2015 provides for a recall of a Member for suspensions of ten or more sitting days). The Committee also recommended Johnson be denied a Parliamentary pass, a courtesy normally extended to former MPs. The contents of the report represented a recommendation to the House of Commons, requiring a vote which was scheduled for 19 June. The Conservative Party issued a one line whip for the vote, essentially giving permission for their MPs to be elsewhere and avoid voting on the report. Parliament accepted the report by 354 votes to seven - the seven votes all from Conservative MPs, with no votes recorded for 225 Conservative MPs, who either abstained or didn't turn up for the vote.

On 16 June, Johnson was unveiled by the as a new columnist for the newspaper, where he would write every Saturday. The news website Politico Europe reported that, according to one of their sources, Johnson would be paid a "very-high six-figure sum" to write the column. Johnson reportedly informed Acoba, Whitehall's anti-corruption panel, half an hour before the columnist assignment was publicly announced. The committee ruled that Johnson committed a "clear breach" of the rules since he had not sought its advice on the matter within an appropriate timeframe. Johnson had previously breached the same rules when he started writing for The Telegraph after stepping down as foreign secretary in 2018. On 27 June, after looking into Johnson's breach, the chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments told the government that the ministerial code needs reform.

On 21 July 2023, experts recovered all relevant messages from Johnson's phone which were to be handed over unredacted to the Coronavirus inquiry.

In September 2023, Johnson visited Ukraine, where he met with President Zelensky and also accepted the highest honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa from Lviv National University.

In October 2023, Johnson announced he would join the television channel GB News as a presenter, commentator and programme maker.

Political positions and ideology

[I am] free-market, tolerant, broadly libertarian (though perhaps not ultra-libertarian), inclined to see the merit of traditions, anti-regulation, pro-immigrant, pro-standing on your own two feet, pro-alcohol, pro-hunting, pro-motorist and ready to defend to the death the right of Glenn Hoddle to believe in reincarnation.

- Boris Johnson, 2011

Ideologically, Johnson has been described by himself and others as a " One-Nation Tory". Political scientists have described Johnson's political positions as ambiguous and contradictory, encompassing nativist, authoritarian and free market tendencies on the one hand, and one-nation liberal conservatism on the other. Some scholars have questioned Johnson's commitment to one-nation conservativism, instead characterising his ideology as being flexible and populist. Purnell stated that Johnson regularly changed his opinion on political issues, commenting on what she perceived to be "an ideological emptiness beneath the staunch Tory exterior". She later referred to his "opportunistic - some might say pragmatic - approach to politics".

During his tenure as London Mayor, Johnson gained a reputation as "a liberal, centre-ground politician", according to Business Insider. In 2012, the political scientist Tony Travers described Johnson as "a fairly classic-that is, small-state-mildly eurosceptic Conservative" who, like his contemporaries Cameron and George Osborne, also embraced "modern social liberalism". The Guardian stated that while mayor, Johnson blended economic and social liberalism, with The Economist saying that in doing so Johnson "transcends his Tory identity" and adopts a more libertarian perspective.

According to political scientist Richard Hayton, Johnson's premiership centred around Brexit, which served as a "national cause". Johnson evoked the discourse of popular sovereignty and anti-establishment populism to portray Parliament as seeking to "sabotage" Brexit, and in doing so, presented himself "as the true representative of 'the people'". In 2019, Al Jazeera editor James Brownswell said that although Johnson had "leaned to the right" since the Brexit campaign, he remained "slightly more socially liberal" than much of his party.

Scholars of comparative politics have drawn comparisons between Johnson and other populist leaders such as Donald Trump and Viktor Orban. Some commentators have likened aspects of Johnson's political style to Trumpism, although others have argued against this, saying that Johnson's stance on matters such as social policy, immigration and free trade is liberal.

Johnson biographer Gimson wrote that Johnson is economically and socially "a genuine liberal", although he retains a "Tory element" to his personality through his "love of existing institutions, and a recognition of the inevitability of hierarchy". Stuart Reid, Johnson's colleague at The Spectator, described the latter's views as being those of a "liberal libertarian". In 2019, reacting to reports in The Sun, that Johnson had told cabinet colleagues he was "basically a Brexity Hezza", former deputy leader of the Conservative Party Michael Heseltine said Johnson "has no right to call himself a one-nation Conservative" and wrote: "I fear that any traces of liberal conservatism that still exist within the prime minister have long since been captured by the rightwing, foreigner-bashing, inward-looking view of the world that has come to characterise his fellow Brexiters."

Environment

During his period as mayor, Johnson expressed climate sceptical views in several columns. In two Daily Telegraph columns published in 2012 and 2013, he conflated the distinction between weather and climate and highlighted a factually incorrect claim by weather forecaster and conspiracy theorist Piers Corbyn that reduced solar activity could lead to a "mini-Ice Age".

Bloomberg News suggested that Johnson's interest in climate change increased after becoming prime minister, and suggested this could have been influenced by his wife Carrie Symonds and father Stanley Johnson, who are both environmental campaigners.

In 2019 and 2020, Johnson expressed support for the UK to have "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and spoke about increasing ambition for mitigating climate change through carbon capture and storage and a renewable energy transition. During the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Johnson called for greater efforts towards climate change mitigation, and welcomed the prospect of coal phase-out.

It was reported in 2022 that Johnson was convinced of the scientific consensus on climate change following a briefing by the chief scientist of the Met Office in January 2020, and subsequently made the issue a priority for his government.

According to TheyWorkForYou as of 2022, Johnson has "generally voted against" what it described as "key measures to prevent climate change"[clarification needed ] while an MP, and other sources confirm this.

Immigration and the European Union

Purnell believed it was the influence of Johnson's maternal family, the left-wing Fawcetts, that led to him developing "a genuine abhorrence of racial discrimination". In 2003, Johnson said of the EU, "I am not by any means an ultra- Eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it." As Mayor of London, Johnson was known as a supporter of immigration. From 2009, he advocated a referendum on Britain's EU membership.

In 2018, during the Brexit negotiations, Johnson called for Britain to leave the Single Market and advocated a more liberal approach to immigration than that of Prime Minister Theresa May. He stated many people believed that Britain's EU membership had led to the suppression of the wages of its "indigenous" people and said the EU was intent on creating a "superstate" that would seek to rob Britain of its sovereignty. In 2019, Johnson said he would take Britain out of the EU on 31 October whether there was a trade deal in place or not. Johnson also stated his opposition to a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

On 19 August 2019, Johnson wrote a letter to the EU and asked for the removal of the "backstop" accord, which had previously been agreed and signed by Theresa May during her premiership. The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, rejected the proposal. On 26 August 2019, Johnson said that Britain would not pay £39 billion for the withdrawal agreement were the UK to leave without a deal on 31 October. The European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said there would be no further negotiation on the trade deal unless the UK agreed to pay the entire sum.[needs update ]

Unionism and devolution

The devolved administrations have criticised the Internal Market Bill for its re-centralisation of control over commerce, reversing the devolution of power in the United Kingdom.

Public image

Johnson has been described by various biographers and commentators as having a light-hearted and charming persona, many of whom suggest he has put significant thought and effort into developing this version of himself throughout his adult life. He has been noted as making significant use of humour in relation to this, sometimes for explicitly political purposes. Johnson has said that "humour is a utensil that you can use to sugar the pill and to get important points across". He is said to have a genuine desire to be liked. He has also been described, including by some of those that have known him personally, as heavily focused on his own interests, with an often vitriolic or irresponsible way of conducting himself in private.

Johnson has been described as a divisive and controversial figure in British politics. Supporters have praised him as humorous, witty, and entertaining. Johnson has been accused of lying or making untruthful or misleading statements throughout his career, and has been compared to former US president Donald Trump. He has been considered a figure with broad appeal outside of the usual Conservative support base. Johnson's premiership has been described by historians as the most controversial and scandal-affected since that of David Lloyd George about a century earlier.

Personal life

Since Johnson was born in New York City to British parents, he first held British-American dual citizenship. In 2014, he acknowledged he was disputing a demand for capital gains tax from the US tax authorities on a property that he inherited in the United Kingdom, which ultimately he paid. In February 2015, he announced his intention to renounce his US citizenship to demonstrate his loyalty to the UK, which he did in 2016. Johnson has a knowledge of French, Italian, German, Spanish, Latin, and Ancient Greek, frequently employing and alluding to classical references in both his newspaper columns and his speeches. His favourite film is The Godfather, owing to "the multiple retribution killings at the end".

Sonia Purnell wrote that Johnson was a "highly evasive figure" when it came to his personal life, who remained detached from others and who had very few if any intimate friends. Among friends and family, Johnson is more commonly known as Al (short for his forename Alexander), rather than his middle name Boris.

In 2007, Johnson said he had smoked cannabis before he went to university. He has also said he had used cocaine. Johnson partakes in cycling, tennis and pilates, and has returned to his passion for road running in 2023 which he temporarily gave up owing to knee problems. Johnson's weight has fluctuated throughout his career; he was considered obese in 2018 and overweight in 2020, and has spoken of making efforts to lose weight.

Johnson previously owned a £1.3 million buy-to-let townhouse in Camberwell, South London. According to HM Land Registry documents, he bought the four-bedroom property with his then-girlfriend Carrie Symonds in July 2019. The register of MPs' interests states that Johnson had a rental income of at least £10,000 a year. In August 2022, it was listed for sale for £1.6 million. In 2023, Johnson and Symonds bought Brightwell Manor, a £3.8 million moated mansion in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire.

Johnson was baptised a Catholic and later confirmed into the Church of England, but has said that his faith "comes and goes" and that he is not a serious practising Christian. In 2020, his son Wilfred was baptised Catholic, prompting suggestions that Johnson had returned to Catholicism. Johnson and Symonds married in a Catholic ceremony at Westminster Cathedral on 29 May 2021. To be married in the Catholic Church, Johnson needed to have his two previous marriages proven to be invalid by reason of lack of canonical form. Since he was baptised Catholic, but his previous weddings were not conferred by the Catholic Church, they are considered putatively invalid.

Johnson holds ancient Greek statesman and orator Pericles as a personal hero. According to Johnson's biographer, Andrew Gimson, regarding ancient Greek and Roman polytheism: "it is clear that [Johnson] is inspired by the Romans, and even more by the Greeks, and repelled by the early Christians". Johnson views secular humanism positively and sees it as owing more to the classical world than to Christian thinking. However, in 2021, Johnson was asked if he held pre-Christian beliefs, which he denied, saying, "Christianity is a superb ethical system and I would count myself as a kind of very, very bad Christian[.] No disrespect to any other religions, but Christianity makes a lot of sense to me."

Relationships

In 1987, Johnson married Allegra Mostyn-Owen, daughter of the art historian William Mostyn-Owen and Italian writer Gaia Servadio. The couple's marriage ended in divorce or annulment in 1993 and 12 days later Johnson married Marina Wheeler, a barrister, daughter of journalist and broadcaster Charles Wheeler. Five weeks later, Wheeler and Johnson's first child was born. The Wheeler and Johnson families have known each other for decades, and Marina Wheeler was at the European School, Brussels, at the same time as her future husband. They have four children: Lara Lettice, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches, and Theodore Apollo.

Between 2000 and 2004, Johnson had an affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt when he was its editor, resulting in a terminated pregnancy and a miscarriage. In April 2006, the News of the World alleged that Johnson was having an affair with journalist Anna Fazackerley. The pair did not comment; shortly afterward, Johnson employed Fazackerley.

In 2009, Johnson fathered a daughter with Helen Macintyre, an arts consultant. In 2013, the Court of Appeal discharged an injunction banning reporting of his daughter's existence. The judge ruled the public had a right to know about Johnson's "reckless" behaviour. There had been speculation that he might have had another child from an extramarital affair, due to an appeal court judge stating in 2013, "the father's infidelities resulted in the conception of children on two occasions". In September 2021, after years of obfuscation, Johnson stated that he had (then) six children, thereby denying the existence of any further illegitimate children.

In October 2020, Jennifer Arcuri, when asked whether her friendship with Johnson was in fact an affair, said "I think that goes without saying ... But I'm not going to talk about it." In March 2021, she went into more detail about the alleged affair in an interview with the Sunday Mirror, saying it lasted from 2012 to 2016.

In 2019, Johnson was living with Carrie Symonds, the daughter of Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent newspaper. Symonds had worked for the Conservative party since 2009 and worked on Johnson's 2012 campaign to be re-elected as mayor. On 29 February 2020, Johnson and Symonds announced they had become engaged in late 2019, and that Symonds was expecting a baby in early summer. Their son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was born on 29 April 2020 at University College Hospital in London.

On 29 May 2021, Johnson married Symonds in a private ceremony at Westminster Cathedral attended by 30 guests, becoming the first prime minister to marry in office since Lord Liverpool married Mary Chester in 1822. On 31 July 2021, it was announced that they were expecting their second child together after Carrie suffered a miscarriage earlier that year. Their daughter, Romy Iris Charlotte Johnson, was born on 9 December 2021 at an NHS London hospital. In May 2023, it was announced that they were expecting their third child together. The child, a son named Frank Alfred Odysseus Johnson, was born on 5 July 2023.

Family and ancestors

Johnson is the eldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative member of the European Parliament and an employee of the European Commission and the World Bank, and the painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl (née Fawcett), the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a barrister and president of the European Commission of Human Rights. His younger siblings are Rachel Johnson, a writer and journalist, Leo Johnson, a broadcaster, and Jo Johnson, ex-minister of state and former Conservative MP for Orpington, who resigned from his brother's government in September 2019 and is now a member of the House of Lords. Johnson's stepmother, Jenny, the second wife of his father Stanley, is the stepdaughter of Teddy Sieff, the former chairman of Marks & Spencer. Having been a member of the Conservatives between 2008 and 2011, Rachel Johnson joined the Liberal Democrats in 2017. She stood as a candidate for Change UK in the 2019 European Elections. Johnson also has two half-siblings, Julia and Maximilian, through his father's later marriage to Jennifer Kidd.

Johnson's paternal grandfather, Wilfred Johnson, was an RAF pilot in Coastal Command during the Second World War. Wilfred Johnson's father was the Ottoman Interior Minister and journalist Ali Kemal, who was a secular Muslim. Ali Kemal's father was a Turk with roots in Kalfat, a village in central Turkey, while his mother was a Circassian reputedly of slave origin. His other paternal ancestry includes English, German and French; one of his German ancestors was said to be the illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg and thus a descendant of George II of Great Britain, which was later confirmed on an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

Johnson's mother is the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe, a palaeographer, who was a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US, and Pennsylvania-born Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, a translator of Thomas Mann. Through this family line, Johnson is a descendant in the seventh generation of Anna Catharina Bischoff, whose mummified corpse was found in 1975 and identified in 2018.

Referring to his varied ancestry, Johnson has described himself as a "one-man melting pot" with a combination of Abrahamic religious great-grandparents. Johnson was also given the middle name " Boris" after a White Russian émigré named Boris Litwin, who was a friend of his parents. An episode of Who Do You Think You Are? explored the German origins of his middle name Pfeffel.

Friends, Voters, Countrymen (HarperCollins, 2001) ISBN 978-0-00-711913-4

Johnson's Column (Continuum International - Academi, 2003) ISBN 978-0-8264-6855-0

Lend Me Your Ears (HarperCollins, 2003) ISBN 978-0-00-717224-5

Seventy-Two Virgins (HarperCollins, 2004) ISBN 978-0-00-719590-9

Aspire Ever Higher / University Policy for the 21st century (Politeia, 2006)

The Dream of Rome (HarperCollins, 2006) ISBN 978-0-00-722441-8

Have I Got Views For You (HarperPerennial, 2006) ISBN 978-0-00-724220-7

Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars (HarperPerennial, 2007) ISBN 978-0-00-726020-1

The Perils of the Pushy Parents: A Cautionary Tale (HarperPress 2007) ISBN 978-0-00-726339-4

Johnson's Life of London (HarperPress 2011) ISBN 978-0-00-741893-0

The Churchill Factor (Hodder & Stoughton 2014) ISBN 978-1-44-478302-5

References

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Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (, born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016.

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Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE (;[3] born 5 May 1988), known mononymously as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter. She is known for her mezzo-soprano vocals and sentimental songwriting. Adele has received numerous accolades including 16 Grammy Awards, 12 Brit Awards (including three for British Album of the Year), an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.

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David Robert Joseph Beckham (; born 2 May 1975) is an English retired professional footballer and current President of Inter Miami CF. He played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, Milan, LA Galaxy, Paris Saint-Germain and the England national team, for which he held the appearance record for an outfield player until 2016.

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Sir Elton Hercules John CH CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947[1]) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his work during the 1970s and for his lasting impact on the music industry, his music and showmanship have had a significant impact on popular music.[2] His songwriting partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin is one of the most successful in history.[3]

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Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 - 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states over the course of her lifetime and remained the monarch of 15 realms by the time of her death. Her reign of over 70 years is the longest of any British monarch and the longest verified reign of any female head of state in history.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother Edward VIII, making the ten-year-old Princess Elizabeth the heir presumptive. She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, and their marriage lasted 73 years until his death in 2021. They had four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

When her father died in February 1952, Elizabeth-then 25 years old-became queen of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (known today as Sri Lanka), as well as head of the Commonwealth. Elizabeth reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the United Kingdom, the decolonisation of Africa, and the United Kingdom's accession to the European Communities and withdrawal from the European Union. The number of her realms varied over time as territories gained independence and some realms became republics. As queen, Elizabeth was served by more than 170 prime ministers across her realms. Her many historic visits and meetings included state visits to China in 1986, to Russia in 1994, and to the Republic of Ireland in 2011, and meetings with five popes and fourteen US presidents.

Significant events included Elizabeth's coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, Diamond, and Platinum jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012, and 2022, respectively. Although she faced occasional republican sentiment and media criticism of her family-particularly after the breakdowns of her children's marriages, her annus horribilis in 1992, and the death in 1997 of her former daughter-in-law Diana-support for the monarchy in the United Kingdom remained consistently high throughout her lifetime, as did her personal popularity. In September 2022, Elizabeth died aged 96 at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and was succeeded by her eldest son, Charles III.

Elizabeth was born on 21 April 1926, the first child of Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI), and his wife, Elizabeth, Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). Her father was the second son of King George V and Queen Mary, and her mother was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She was delivered at 02:40 ( GMT) by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfather's London home, 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair. The Anglican Archbishop of York, Cosmo Gordon Lang, baptised her in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace on 29 May, and she was named Elizabeth after her mother; Alexandra after her paternal great-grandmother, who had died six months earlier; and Mary after her paternal grandmother. She was called "Lilibet" by her close family, based on what she called herself at first. She was cherished by her grandfather George V, whom she affectionately called "Grandpa England", and her regular visits during his serious illness in 1929 were credited in the popular press and by later biographers with raising his spirits and aiding his recovery.

Elizabeth's only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930. The two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature, and music. Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margaret's childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeth's love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, and her attitude of responsibility. Others echoed such observations: Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as "a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant." Her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as "a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved". Elizabeth's early life was spent primarily at the Yorks' residences at 145 Piccadilly (their town house in London) and Royal Lodge in Windsor.

Heir presumptive

During her grandfather's reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the British throne, behind her uncle Edward and her father. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, as Edward was still young and likely to marry and have children of his own, who would precede Elizabeth in the line of succession. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second in line to the throne, after her father. Later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeth's father became king, taking the regnal name George VI. Since Elizabeth had no brothers, she became heir presumptive. If her parents had subsequently had a son, he would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession, which was determined by the male-preference primogeniture in effect at the time.

Elizabeth received private tuition in constitutional history from Henry Marten, Vice-Provost of Eton College, and learned French from a succession of native-speaking governesses. A Girl Guides company, the 1st Buckingham Palace Company, was formed specifically so she could socialise with girls her age. Later, she was enrolled as a Sea Ranger.

In 1939, Elizabeth's parents toured Canada and the United States. As in 1927, when they had toured Australia and New Zealand, Elizabeth remained in Britain since her father thought she was too young to undertake public tours. She "looked tearful" as her parents departed. They corresponded regularly, and she and her parents made the first royal transatlantic telephone call on 18 May.

Second World War

In September 1939, Britain entered the Second World War. Lord Hailsham suggested that Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret should be evacuated to Canada to avoid the frequent aerial bombings of London by the . This was rejected by their mother, who declared, "The children won't go without me. I won't leave without the King. And the King will never leave." The princesses stayed at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, until Christmas 1939, when they moved to Sandringham House, Norfolk. From February to May 1940, they lived at Royal Lodge, Windsor, until moving to Windsor Castle, where they lived for most of the next five years. At Windsor, the princesses staged pantomimes at Christmas in aid of the Queen's Wool Fund, which bought yarn to knit into military garments. In 1940, the 14-year-old Elizabeth made her first radio broadcast during the BBC's Children's Hour, addressing other children who had been evacuated from the cities. She stated: "We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well."

In 1943, Elizabeth undertook her first solo public appearance on a visit to the Grenadier Guards, of which she had been appointed colonel the previous year. As she approached her 18th birthday, Parliament changed the law so that she could act as one of five counsellors of state in the event of her father's incapacity or absence abroad, such as his visit to Italy in July 1944. In February 1945, she was appointed an honorary second subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service with the service number 230873. She trained and worked as a driver and mechanic and was given the rank of honorary junior commander (female equivalent of captain at the time) five months later.

At the end of the war in Europe, on Victory in Europe Day, Elizabeth and Margaret mingled incognito with the celebrating crowds in the streets of London. Elizabeth later said in a rare interview, "We asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we were terrified of being recognised ... I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief."

During the war, plans were drawn to quell Welsh nationalism by affiliating Elizabeth more closely with Wales. Proposals, such as appointing her Constable of Caernarfon Castle or a patron of Urdd Gobaith Cymru (the Welsh League of Youth), were abandoned for several reasons, including fear of associating Elizabeth with conscientious objectors in the Urdd at a time when Britain was at war. Welsh politicians suggested she be made Princess of Wales on her 18th birthday. Home Secretary Herbert Morrison supported the idea, but the King rejected it because he felt such a title belonged solely to the wife of a Prince of Wales and the Prince of Wales had always been the heir apparent. In 1946, she was inducted into the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod of Wales.

Elizabeth went on her first overseas tour in 1947, accompanying her parents through southern Africa. During the tour, in a broadcast to the British Commonwealth on her 21st birthday, she made the following pledge: "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong." The oft-quoted speech was written by Dermot Morrah, a journalist for .

Elizabeth met her future husband, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, in 1934 and again in 1937. They were second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark and third cousins through Queen Victoria. After meeting for the third time at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in July 1939, Elizabeth-though only 13 years old-said she fell in love with Philip, who was 18, and they began to exchange letters. She was 21 when their engagement was officially announced on 9 July 1947.

The engagement attracted some controversy. Philip had no financial standing, was foreign-born (though a British subject who had served in the Royal Navy throughout the Second World War), and had sisters who had married German noblemen with Nazi links. Marion Crawford wrote, "Some of the King's advisors did not think him good enough for her. He was a prince without a home or kingdom. Some of the papers played long and loud tunes on the string of Philip's foreign origin." Later biographies reported that Elizabeth's mother had reservations about the union initially and teased Philip as " the Hun". In later life, however, she told the biographer Tim Heald that Philip was "an English gentleman".

Before the marriage, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles, officially converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and adopted the style Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, taking the surname of his mother's British family. Shortly before the wedding, he was created Duke of Edinburgh and granted the style His Royal Highness. Elizabeth and Philip were married on 20 November 1947 at Westminster Abbey. They received 2,500 wedding gifts from around the world. Elizabeth required ration coupons to buy the material for her gown (which was designed by Norman Hartnell) because Britain had not yet completely recovered from the devastation of the war. In post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for Philip's German relations, including his three surviving sisters, to be invited to the wedding. Neither was an invitation extended to the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII.

Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, Charles, in November 1948. One month earlier, the King had issued letters patent allowing her children to use the style and title of a royal prince or princess, to which they otherwise would not have been entitled as their father was no longer a royal prince. A second child, Princess Anne, was born in August 1950.

Following their wedding, the couple leased Windlesham Moor, near Windsor Castle, until July 1949, when they took up residence at Clarence House in London. At various times between 1949 and 1951, the Duke of Edinburgh was stationed in the British Crown Colony of Malta as a serving Royal Navy officer. He and Elizabeth lived intermittently in Malta for several months at a time in the hamlet of Gwardamanġa, at Villa Guardamangia, the rented home of Philip's uncle Lord Mountbatten. Their two children remained in Britain.

Accession and coronation

As George VI's health declined during 1951, Elizabeth frequently stood in for him at public events. When she visited Canada and Harry S. Truman in Washington, DC, in October 1951, her private secretary Martin Charteris carried a draft accession declaration in case the King died while she was on tour. In early 1952, Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia and New Zealand by way of the British colony of Kenya. On 6 February, they had just returned to their Kenyan home, Sagana Lodge, after a night spent at Treetops Hotel, when word arrived of the death of Elizabeth's father. Philip broke the news to the new queen. She chose to retain Elizabeth as her regnal name, and was therefore called Elizabeth II. The numeral offended some Scots, as she was the first Elizabeth to rule in Scotland. She was proclaimed queen throughout her realms, and the royal party hastily returned to the United Kingdom. Elizabeth and Philip moved into Buckingham Palace.

With Elizabeth's accession, it seemed possible that the royal house would take her husband's name, in line with the custom for married women of the time. Lord Mountbatten advocated for House of Mountbatten, and Philip suggested House of Edinburgh, after his ducal title. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, and Elizabeth's grandmother Queen Mary favoured the retention of the House of Windsor. Elizabeth issued a declaration on 9 April 1952 that the royal house would continue to be Windsor. Philip complained, "I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children." In 1960, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted for Philip and Elizabeth's male-line descendants who do not carry royal titles.

Amid preparations for the coronation, Princess Margaret told her sister she wished to marry Peter Townsend, a divorcé 16 years Margaret's senior with two sons from his previous marriage. Elizabeth asked them to wait for a year; in the words of her private secretary, "the Queen was naturally sympathetic towards the Princess, but I think she thought-she hoped-given time, the affair would peter out." Senior politicians were against the match and the Church of England did not permit remarriage after divorce. If Margaret had contracted a civil marriage, she would have been expected to renounce her right of succession. Margaret decided to abandon her plans with Townsend. In 1960, she married Antony Armstrong-Jones, who was created Earl of Snowdon the following year. They were divorced in 1978. She did not remarry.

Despite the death of Queen Mary on 24 March 1953, the coronation went ahead as planned on 2 June, as Mary had requested. The coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey was televised for the first time, with the exception of the anointing and communion. On Elizabeth's instruction, her coronation gown was embroidered with the floral emblems of Commonwealth countries.

Continuing evolution of the Commonwealth

Elizabeth's realms (light red and pink) and their territories and protectorates (dark red) at the beginning of her reign in 1952

From Elizabeth's birth onwards, the British Empire continued its transformation into the Commonwealth of Nations. By the time of her accession in 1952, her role as head of multiple independent states was already established. In 1953, Elizabeth and her husband embarked on a seven-month round-the-world tour, visiting 13 countries and covering more than 40,000 miles (64,000 km) by land, sea and air. She became the first reigning monarch of Australia and New Zealand to visit those nations. During the tour, crowds were immense; three-quarters of the population of Australia were estimated to have seen her. Throughout her reign, Elizabeth made hundreds of state visits to other countries and tours of the Commonwealth; she was the most widely travelled head of state.

In 1956, the British and French prime ministers, Sir Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet, discussed the possibility of France joining the Commonwealth. The proposal was never accepted, and the following year France signed the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union. In November 1956, Britain and France invaded Egypt in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to capture the Suez Canal. Lord Mountbatten said Elizabeth was opposed to the invasion, though Eden denied it. Eden resigned two months later.

The governing Conservative Party had no formal mechanism for choosing a leader, meaning that it fell to Elizabeth to decide whom to commission to form a government following Eden's resignation. Eden recommended she consult Lord Salisbury, the lord president of the council. Lord Salisbury and Lord Kilmuir, the lord chancellor, consulted the British Cabinet, Churchill, and the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, resulting in Elizabeth appointing their recommended candidate: Harold Macmillan.

The Suez crisis and the choice of Eden's successor led, in 1957, to the first major personal criticism of Elizabeth. In a magazine, which he owned and edited, Lord Altrincham accused her of being "out of touch". Altrincham was denounced by public figures and slapped by a member of the public appalled by his comments. Six years later, in 1963, Macmillan resigned and advised Elizabeth to appoint Alec Douglas-Home as the prime minister, advice she followed. Elizabeth again came under criticism for appointing the prime minister on the advice of a small number of ministers or a single minister. In 1965, the Conservatives adopted a formal mechanism for electing a leader, thus relieving the Queen of her involvement.

In 1957, Elizabeth made a state visit to the United States, where she addressed the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of the Commonwealth. On the same tour, she opened the 23rd Canadian Parliament, becoming the first monarch of Canada to open a parliamentary session. Two years later, solely in her capacity as Queen of Canada, she revisited the United States and toured Canada. In 1961, she toured Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Iran. On a visit to Ghana the same year, she dismissed fears for her safety, even though her host, President Kwame Nkrumah, who had replaced her as head of state, was a target for assassins. Harold Macmillan wrote, "The Queen has been absolutely determined all through ... She is impatient of the attitude towards her to treat her as ... a film star ... She has indeed ' the heart and stomach of a man' ... She loves her duty and means to be a Queen." Before her tour through parts of Quebec in 1964, the press reported extremists within the Quebec separatist movement were plotting Elizabeth's assassination. No attempt was made, but a riot did break out while she was in Montreal; Elizabeth's "calmness and courage in the face of the violence" was noted.

Elizabeth gave birth to her third child, Prince Andrew, in February 1960, which was the first birth to a reigning British monarch since 1857. Her fourth child, Prince Edward, was born in March 1964.

On 21 October 1966, the Aberfan disaster in Wales saw 116 children and 28 adults killed when a colliery spoil tip collapsed, engulfing Pantglas Junior School and the surrounding houses in the village. The Queen was criticised for waiting eight days before deciding to visit the village, and her delay in visiting the scene was a mistake that she later regretted.

Acceleration of decolonisation

The 1960s and 1970s saw an acceleration in the decolonisation of Africa and the Caribbean. More than 20 countries gained independence from Britain as part of a planned transition to self-government. In 1965, however, the Rhodesian prime minister, Ian Smith, in opposition to moves towards majority rule, unilaterally declared independence while expressing "loyalty and devotion" to Elizabeth, declaring her " Queen of Rhodesia". Although Elizabeth formally dismissed him, and the international community applied sanctions against Rhodesia, his regime survived for over a decade. As Britain's ties to its former empire weakened, the British government sought entry to the European Community, a goal it achieved in 1973.

Elizabeth toured Yugoslavia in October 1972, becoming the first British monarch to visit a communist country. She was received at the airport by President Josip Broz Tito, and a crowd of thousands greeted her in Belgrade.

In February 1974, the British prime minister, Edward Heath, advised Elizabeth to call a general election in the middle of her tour of the Austronesian Pacific Rim, requiring her to fly back to Britain. The election resulted in a hung parliament; Heath's Conservatives were not the largest party but could stay in office if they formed a coalition with the Liberals. When discussions on forming a coalition foundered, Heath resigned, and Elizabeth asked the Leader of the Opposition, Labour's Harold Wilson, to form a government.

A year later, at the height of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, the Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam, was dismissed from his post by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, after the Opposition-controlled Senate rejected Whitlam's budget proposals. As Whitlam had a majority in the House of Representatives, Speaker Gordon Scholes appealed to Elizabeth to reverse Kerr's decision. She declined, saying she would not interfere in decisions reserved by the Constitution of Australia for the Governor-General. The crisis fuelled Australian republicanism.

Silver Jubilee

In 1977, Elizabeth marked the Silver Jubilee of her accession. Parties and events took place throughout the Commonwealth, many coinciding with her associated national and Commonwealth tours. The celebrations re-affirmed Elizabeth's popularity, despite virtually coincident negative press coverage of Princess Margaret's separation from her husband, Lord Snowdon. In 1978, Elizabeth endured a state visit to the United Kingdom by Romania's communist leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena, though privately she thought they had "blood on their hands". The following year brought two blows: one was the unmasking of Anthony Blunt, former Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, as a communist spy; the other was the assassination of her uncle-in-law Lord Mountbatten by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

According to Paul Martin Sr., by the end of the 1970s, Elizabeth was worried the Crown "had little meaning for" Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister. Tony Benn said Elizabeth found Trudeau "rather disappointing". Trudeau's supposed republicanism seemed to be confirmed by his antics, such as sliding down banisters at Buckingham Palace and pirouetting behind Elizabeth's back in 1977, and the removal of various Canadian royal symbols during his term of office. In 1980, Canadian politicians sent to London to discuss the patriation of the Canadian constitution found Elizabeth "better informed ... than any of the British politicians or bureaucrats". She was particularly interested after the failure of Bill C-60, which would have affected her role as head of state.

Press scrutiny and Thatcher premiership

During the 1981 Trooping the Colour ceremony, six weeks before the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, six shots were fired at Elizabeth from close range as she rode down The Mall, London, on her horse, Burmese. Police later discovered the shots were blanks. The 17-year-old assailant, Marcus Sarjeant, was sentenced to five years in prison and released after three. Elizabeth's composure and skill in controlling her mount were widely praised. That October, Elizabeth was the subject of another attack while on a visit to Dunedin, New Zealand. Christopher John Lewis, who was 17 years old, fired a shot with a .22 rifle from the fifth floor of a building overlooking the parade but missed. Lewis was arrested, but instead of being charged with attempted murder or treason was sentenced to three years in jail for unlawful possession and discharge of a firearm. Two years into his sentence, he attempted to escape a psychiatric hospital with the intention of assassinating Charles, who was visiting the country with Diana and their son Prince William.

From April to September 1982, Elizabeth's son Andrew served with British forces in the Falklands War, for which she reportedly felt anxiety and pride. On 9 July, she awoke in her bedroom at Buckingham Palace to find an intruder, Michael Fagan, in the room with her. In a serious lapse of security, assistance only arrived after two calls to the Palace police switchboard. After hosting US president Ronald Reagan at Windsor Castle in 1982 and visiting his California ranch in 1983, Elizabeth was angered when his administration ordered the invasion of Grenada, one of her Caribbean realms, without informing her.

Intense media interest in the opinions and private lives of the royal family during the 1980s led to a series of sensational stories in the press, pioneered by tabloid. As Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun, told his staff: "Give me a Sunday for Monday splash on the Royals. Don't worry if it's not true-so long as there's not too much of a fuss about it afterwards." Newspaper editor Donald Trelford wrote in The Observer of 21 September 1986: "The royal soap opera has now reached such a pitch of public interest that the boundary between fact and fiction has been lost sight of ... it is not just that some papers don't check their facts or accept denials: they don't care if the stories are true or not." It was reported, most notably in The Sunday Times of 20 July 1986, that Elizabeth was worried that Margaret Thatcher's economic policies fostered social divisions and was alarmed by high unemployment, a series of riots, the violence of a miners' strike, and Thatcher's refusal to apply sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The sources of the rumours included royal aide Michael Shea and Commonwealth secretary-general Shridath Ramphal, but Shea claimed his remarks were taken out of context and embellished by speculation. Thatcher reputedly said Elizabeth would vote for the Social Democratic Party-Thatcher's political opponents. Thatcher's biographer, John Campbell, claimed "the report was a piece of journalistic mischief-making". Reports of acrimony between them were exaggerated, and Elizabeth gave two honours in her personal gift-membership in the Order of Merit and the Order of the Garter-to Thatcher after her replacement as prime minister by John Major. Brian Mulroney, Canadian prime minister between 1984 and 1993, said Elizabeth was a "behind the scenes force" in ending apartheid.

In 1986, Elizabeth paid a six-day state visit to the People's Republic of China, becoming the first British monarch to visit the country. The tour included the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, and the Terracotta Warriors. At a state banquet, Elizabeth joked about the first British emissary to China being lost at sea with Queen Elizabeth I's letter to the Wanli Emperor, and remarked, "fortunately postal services have improved since 1602". Elizabeth's visit also signified the acceptance of both countries that sovereignty over Hong Kong would be transferred from the United Kingdom to China in 1997.

By the end of the 1980s, Elizabeth had become the target of satire. The involvement of younger members of the royal family in the charity game show It's a Royal Knockout in 1987 was ridiculed. In Canada, Elizabeth publicly supported politically divisive constitutional amendments, prompting criticism from opponents of the proposed changes, including Pierre Trudeau. The same year, the elected Fijian government was deposed in a military coup. As monarch of Fiji, Elizabeth supported the attempts of Governor-General Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau to assert executive power and negotiate a settlement. Coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka deposed Ganilau and declared Fiji a republic.

Turbulent 1990s and annus horribilis

In the wake of coalition victory in the Gulf War, Elizabeth became the first British monarch to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress in May 1991.

On 24 November 1992, in a speech to mark the Ruby Jubilee of her accession to the throne, Elizabeth called 1992 her annus horribilis (a Latin phrase, meaning "horrible year"). Republican feeling in Britain had risen because of press estimates of Elizabeth's private wealth-contradicted by the Palace-and reports of affairs and strained marriages among her extended family. In March, her second son, Prince Andrew, separated from his wife, Sarah, and Mauritius removed Elizabeth as head of state; her daughter, Princess Anne, divorced Captain Mark Phillips in April; angry demonstrators in Dresden threw eggs at Elizabeth during a state visit to Germany in October; and a large fire broke out at Windsor Castle, one of her official residences, in November. The monarchy came under increased criticism and public scrutiny. In an unusually personal speech, Elizabeth said that any institution must expect criticism, but suggested it might be done with "a touch of humour, gentleness and understanding". Two days later, John Major announced plans to reform the royal finances, drawn up the previous year, including Elizabeth paying income tax from 1993 onwards, and a reduction in the civil list. In December, Prince Charles and his wife, Diana, formally separated. At the end of the year, Elizabeth sued The Sun newspaper for breach of copyright when it published the text of her annual Christmas message two days before it was broadcast. The newspaper was forced to pay her legal fees and donated £200,000 to charity. Elizabeth's solicitors had taken successful action against The Sun five years earlier for breach of copyright after it published a photograph of her daughter-in-law the Duchess of York and her granddaughter Princess Beatrice.

In January 1994, Elizabeth broke the scaphoid bone in her left wrist as the horse she was riding at Sandringham tripped and fell. In October 1994, she became the first reigning British monarch to set foot on Russian soil. In October 1995, Elizabeth was tricked into a hoax call by Montreal radio host Pierre Brassard impersonating Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien. Elizabeth, who believed that she was speaking to Chrétien, said she supported Canadian unity and would try to influence Quebec's referendum on proposals to break away from Canada.

In the year that followed, public revelations on the state of Charles and Diana's marriage continued. In consultation with her husband and John Major, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury ( George Carey) and her private secretary ( Robert Fellowes), Elizabeth wrote to Charles and Diana at the end of December 1995, suggesting that a divorce would be advisable.

In August 1997, a year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris. Elizabeth was on holiday with her extended family at Balmoral. Diana's two sons, Princes William and Harry, wanted to attend church, so Elizabeth and Philip took them that morning. Afterwards, for five days, the royal couple shielded their grandsons from the intense press interest by keeping them at Balmoral where they could grieve in private, but the royal family's silence and seclusion, and the failure to fly a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, caused public dismay. Pressured by the hostile reaction, Elizabeth agreed to return to London and address the nation in a live television broadcast on 5 September, the day before Diana's funeral. In the broadcast, she expressed admiration for Diana and her feelings "as a grandmother" for the two princes. As a result, much of the public hostility evaporated.

In October 1997, Elizabeth and Philip made a state visit to India, which included a controversial visit to the site of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre to pay her respects. Protesters chanted "Killer Queen, go back", and there were demands for her to apologise for the action of British troops 78 years earlier. At the memorial in the park, she and Philip laid a wreath and stood for a 30‑second moment of silence. As a result, much of the fury among the public softened, and the protests were called off. That November, Elizabeth and her husband held a reception at Banqueting House to mark their golden wedding anniversary. Elizabeth made a speech and praised Philip for his role as a consort, referring to him as "my strength and stay".

In 1999, as part of the process of devolution within the UK, Elizabeth formally opened newly established legislatures for Wales and Scotland: the National Assembly for Wales at Cardiff in May, and the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh in July.

Golden Jubilee

On the eve of the new millennium, Elizabeth and Philip boarded a vessel from Southwark, bound for the Millennium Dome. Before passing under Tower Bridge, Elizabeth lit the National Millennium Beacon in the Pool of London using a laser torch. Shortly before midnight, she officially opened the Dome. During the singing of Auld Lang Syne, Elizabeth held hands with Philip and British prime minister Tony Blair.

In 2002, Elizabeth marked her Golden Jubilee, the 50th anniversary of her accession. Her sister and mother died in February and March, respectively, and the media speculated on whether the Jubilee would be a success or a failure. She again undertook an extensive tour of her realms, beginning in Jamaica in February, where she called the farewell banquet "memorable" after a power cut plunged King's House, the official residence of the governor-general, into darkness. As in 1977, there were street parties and commemorative events, and monuments were named to honour the occasion. One million people attended each day of the three-day main Jubilee celebration in London, and the enthusiasm shown for Elizabeth by the public was greater than many journalists had anticipated.

Greeting NASA employees at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, May 2007

In 2003, Elizabeth sued the Daily Mirror for breach of confidence and obtained an injunction which prevented the outlet from publishing information gathered by a reporter who posed as a footman at Buckingham Palace. The newspaper also paid £25,000 towards her legal costs. Though generally healthy throughout her life, in 2003 she had keyhole surgery on both knees. In October 2006, she missed the opening of the new Emirates Stadium because of a strained back muscle that had been troubling her since the summer.

In May 2007, citing unnamed sources, The Daily Telegraph reported that Elizabeth was "exasperated and frustrated" by the policies of Tony Blair, that she was concerned the British Armed Forces were overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that she had raised concerns over rural and countryside issues with Blair. She was, however, said to admire Blair's efforts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland. She became the first British monarch to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary in November 2007. On 20 March 2008, at the Church of Ireland St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, Elizabeth attended the first Maundy service held outside England and Wales.

Elizabeth addressed the UN General Assembly for a second time in 2010, again in her capacity as Queen of all Commonwealth realms and Head of the Commonwealth. The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, introduced her as "an anchor for our age". During her visit to New York, which followed a tour of Canada, she officially opened a memorial garden for British victims of the 9/11 attacks. Elizabeth's 11-day visit to Australia in October 2011 was her 16th visit to the country since 1954. By invitation of the Irish president, Mary McAleese, she made the first state visit to the Republic of Ireland by a British monarch in May 2011.

Diamond Jubilee and longevity

Elizabeth's 2012 Diamond Jubilee marked 60 years on the throne, and celebrations were held throughout her realms, the wider Commonwealth, and beyond. She and her husband undertook an extensive tour of the United Kingdom, while her children and grandchildren embarked on royal tours of other Commonwealth states on her behalf. On 4 June, Jubilee beacons were lit around the world. On 18 December, she became the first British sovereign to attend a peacetime Cabinet meeting since George III in 1781.

Elizabeth, who opened the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, also opened the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in London, making her the first head of state to open two Olympic Games in two countries. For the London Olympics, she played herself in a short film as part of the opening ceremony, alongside Daniel Craig as James Bond. On 4 April 2013, she received an honorary BAFTA for her patronage of the film industry and was called "the most memorable Bond girl yet" at the award ceremony.

Opening the Borders Railway on the day she became the longest-reigning British monarch, 2015. In her speech, she said she had never aspired to achieve that milestone.[196]

On 3 March 2013, Elizabeth stayed overnight at King Edward VII's Hospital as a precaution after developing symptoms of gastroenteritis. A week later, she signed the new Charter of the Commonwealth. Because of her age and the need for her to limit travelling, in 2013 she chose not to attend the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting for the first time in 40 years. She was represented at the summit in Sri Lanka by Prince Charles. On 20 April 2018, the Commonwealth heads of government announced that Charles would succeed her as Head of the Commonwealth, which she stated was her "sincere wish". She underwent cataract surgery in May 2018. In March 2019, she gave up driving on public roads, largely as a consequence of a car crash involving her husband two months earlier.

Elizabeth surpassed her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the longest-lived British monarch on 21 December 2007, and the longest-reigning British monarch and longest-reigning queen regnant and female head of state in the world on 9 September 2015. She became the oldest current monarch after King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died on 23 January 2015. She later became the longest-reigning current monarch and the longest-serving current head of state following the death of King Bhumibol of Thailand on 13 October 2016, and the oldest current head of state on the resignation of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe on 21 November 2017. On 6 February 2017, she became the first British monarch to commemorate a sapphire jubilee, and on 20 November, she was the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary. Philip had retired from his official duties as the Queen's consort in August 2017.

COVID-19 pandemic

On 19 March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United Kingdom, Elizabeth moved to Windsor Castle and sequestered there as a precaution. Public engagements were cancelled and Windsor Castle followed a strict sanitary protocol nicknamed "HMS Bubble".

Virtual meeting with Cindy Kiro during the pandemic, October 2021

On 5 April, in a televised broadcast watched by an estimated 24 million viewers in the UK, she asked people to "take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again." On 8 May, the 75th anniversary of VE Day, in a television broadcast at 9 pm-the exact time at which her father George VI had broadcast to the nation on the same day in 1945-she asked people to "never give up, never despair". In October, she visited the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Wiltshire, her first public engagement since the start of the pandemic. On 4 November, she appeared masked for the first time in public, during a private pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, to mark the centenary of his burial. In 2021, she received her first and second COVID-19 vaccinations in January and April respectively.

Prince Philip died on 9 April 2021, after 73 years of marriage, making Elizabeth the first British monarch to reign as a widow or widower since Queen Victoria. She was reportedly at her husband's bedside when he died, and remarked in private that his death had "left a huge void". Due to the COVID-19 restrictions in place in England at the time, Elizabeth sat alone at Philip's funeral service, which evoked sympathy from people around the world. In her Christmas broadcast that year, which was ultimately her last, she paid a personal tribute to her "beloved Philip", saying, "That mischievous, inquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him".

Despite the pandemic, Elizabeth attended the 2021 State Opening of Parliament in May, and the 47th G7 summit in June. On 5 July, the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the UK's National Health Service, she announced that the NHS would be awarded the George Cross to "recognise all NHS staff, past and present, across all disciplines and all four nations". In October 2021, she began using a walking stick during public engagements for the first time since her operation in 2004. Following an overnight stay in hospital on 20 October, her previously scheduled visits to Northern Ireland, the COP26 summit in Glasgow, and the 2021 National Service of Remembrance were cancelled on health grounds. On Christmas Day 2021, while she was staying at Windsor Castle, 19-year-old Jaswant Singh Chail broke into the gardens using a rope ladder and carrying a crossbow with the aim of assassinating Elizabeth in revenge for the Amritsar massacre. Before he could enter any buildings, he was arrested and detained under the Mental Health Act. In 2023, he pled guilty to attempting to injure or alarm the sovereign.

Platinum Jubilee

Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee began on 6 February 2022, marking 70 years since she acceded to the throne on her father's death. On the eve of the date, she held a reception at Sandringham House for pensioners, local Women's Institute members and charity volunteers. In her accession day message, Elizabeth renewed her commitment to a lifetime of public service, which she had originally made in 1947.

Later that month, Elizabeth had "mild cold-like symptoms" and tested positive for COVID-19, along with some staff and family members. She cancelled two virtual audiences on 22 February, but held a phone conversation with British prime minister Boris Johnson the following day amid a crisis on the Russo-Ukrainian border, following which she made a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. On 28 February, she was reported to have recovered and spent time with her family at Frogmore. On 7 March, Elizabeth met Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at Windsor Castle, in her first in-person engagement since her COVID diagnosis. She later remarked that COVID infection "leave[s] one very tired and exhausted ... It's not a nice result".

Elizabeth was present at the service of thanksgiving for Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey on 29 March, but was unable to attend the annual Commonwealth Day service that month or the Royal Maundy service in April, due to "episodic mobility problems". She missed the State Opening of Parliament in May for the first time in 59 years. (She did not attend the 1959 and 1963 state openings as she was pregnant with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, respectively.) In her absence, Parliament was opened by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge as counsellors of state.

During the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Elizabeth was largely confined to balcony appearances and missed the National Service of Thanksgiving. For the Jubilee concert, she took part in a sketch with Paddington Bear that opened the event outside Buckingham Palace. On 13 June, she became the second-longest reigning monarch in history among those whose exact dates of reign are known, with 70 years, 127 days reigned-surpassing King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. On 6 September, she appointed her 15th British prime minister, Liz Truss, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. This marked the only time she did not receive a new prime minister at Buckingham Palace during her reign. No other British reign had seen so many prime ministers. The Queen's last public message was issued on 7 September to her Canadian people, in the aftermath of the Saskatchewan stabbings.

Elizabeth never planned to abdicate, though she took on fewer public engagements as she grew older and Prince Charles took on more of her duties. The Queen told Canadian governor-general Adrienne Clarkson in a meeting in 2002 that she would never abdicate, saying "It is not our tradition. Although, I suppose if I became completely gaga, one would have to do something". In June 2022, Elizabeth met the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who "came away thinking there is someone who has no fear of death, has hope in the future, knows the rock on which she stands and that gives her strength."

On 8 September 2022, Buckingham Palace released a statement which read: "Following further evaluation this morning, the Queen's doctors are concerned for Her Majesty's health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision. The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral." Her immediate family rushed to Balmoral to be by her side. She died peacefully at 15:10 BST at the age of 96, with two of her children, Charles and Anne, by her side. Her death was announced to the public at 18:30, setting in motion Operation London Bridge and, because she died in Scotland, Operation Unicorn. Elizabeth was the first monarch to die in Scotland since James V in 1542. Her death certificate recorded her cause of death as " old age".

On 12 September, Elizabeth's coffin was carried up the Royal Mile in a procession to St Giles' Cathedral, where the Crown of Scotland was placed on it. Her coffin lay at rest at the cathedral for 24 hours, guarded by the Royal Company of Archers, during which around 33,000 people filed past the coffin. It was taken by air to London on 13 September. On 14 September, her coffin was taken in a military procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, where Elizabeth lay in state for four days. The coffin was guarded by members of both the Sovereign's Bodyguard and the Household Division. An estimated 250,000 members of the public filed past the coffin, as did politicians and other public figures. On 16 September, Elizabeth's children held a vigil around her coffin, and the next day her eight grandchildren did the same.

Elizabeth's coffin on the State Gun Carriage of the Royal Navy, during the procession to Wellington Arch

Elizabeth's state funeral was held at Westminster Abbey on 19 September, which marked the first time that a monarch's funeral service had been held at the Abbey since George II in 1760. More than a million people lined the streets of central London, and the day was declared a holiday in several Commonwealth countries. In Windsor, a final procession involving 1,000 military personnel took place, which 97,000 people witnessed. Elizabeth's fell pony, and two royal corgis, stood at the side of the procession. After a committal service at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, Elizabeth was interred with her husband Philip in the King George VI Memorial Chapel later the same day, in a private ceremony attended by her closest family members.

Beliefs, activities, and interests

Elizabeth rarely gave interviews, and little was known of her political opinions, which she did not express explicitly in public. It is against convention to ask or reveal the monarch's views. When Times journalist Paul Routledge asked her about the miners' strike of 1984-85 during a royal tour of the newspaper's offices, she replied that it was "all about one man" (a reference to Arthur Scargill), with which Routledge disagreed. Routledge was widely criticised in the media for asking the question and claimed that he was unaware of the protocols. After the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron was overheard saying that Elizabeth was pleased with the outcome. She had arguably issued a public coded statement about the referendum by telling one woman outside Balmoral Kirk that she hoped people would think "very carefully" about the outcome. It emerged later that Cameron had specifically requested that she register her concern.

Elizabeth had a deep sense of religious and civic duty, and took her Coronation Oath seriously. Aside from her official religious role as Supreme Governor of the established Church of England, she worshipped with that church and with the national Church of Scotland. She demonstrated support for inter-faith relations and met with leaders of other churches and religions, including five popes: Pius XII, John XXIII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. A personal note about her faith often featured in her annual Christmas Message broadcast to the Commonwealth. In 2000, she said:

To many of us, our beliefs are of fundamental importance. For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ's words and example.

Elizabeth was patron of more than 600 organisations and charities. The Charities Aid Foundation estimated that Elizabeth helped raise over £1.4 billion for her patronages during her reign. Her main leisure interests included equestrianism and dogs, especially her Pembroke Welsh Corgis. Her lifelong love of corgis began in 1933 with Dookie, the first corgi owned by her family. Scenes of a relaxed, informal home life were occasionally witnessed; she and her family, from time to time, prepared a meal together and washed the dishes afterwards.

Media depiction and public opinion

In the 1950s, as a young woman at the start of her reign, Elizabeth was depicted as a glamorous "fairytale Queen". After the trauma of the Second World War, it was a time of hope, a period of progress and achievement heralding a "new Elizabethan age". Lord Altrincham's accusation in 1957 that her speeches sounded like those of a " priggish schoolgirl" was an extremely rare criticism. In the late 1960s, attempts to portray a more modern image of the monarchy were made in the television documentary Royal Family and by televising Prince Charles's investiture as Prince of Wales. Elizabeth also instituted other new practices; her first royal walkabout, meeting ordinary members of the public, took place during a tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1970. Her wardrobe developed a recognisable, signature style driven more by function than fashion. In public, she took to wearing mostly solid-colour overcoats and decorative hats, allowing her to be seen easily in a crowd.

At Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee in 1977, the crowds and celebrations were genuinely enthusiastic; but, in the 1980s, public criticism of the royal family increased, as the personal and working lives of Elizabeth's children came under media scrutiny. Her popularity sank to a low point in the 1990s. Under pressure from public opinion, she began to pay income tax for the first time, and Buckingham Palace was opened to the public. Although support for republicanism in Britain seemed higher than at any time in living memory, republican ideology was still a minority viewpoint, and Elizabeth herself had high approval ratings. Criticism was focused on the institution of the monarchy itself, and the conduct of Elizabeth's wider family, rather than her own behaviour and actions. Discontent with the monarchy reached its peak on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, although Elizabeth's personal popularity-as well as general support for the monarchy-rebounded after her live television broadcast to the world five days after Diana's death.

In November 1999, a referendum in Australia on the future of the Australian monarchy favoured its retention in preference to an indirectly elected head of state. Many republicans credited Elizabeth's personal popularity with the survival of the monarchy in Australia. In 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard noted that there was a "deep affection" for Elizabeth in Australia and that another referendum on the monarchy should wait until after her reign. Gillard's successor, Malcolm Turnbull, who led the republican campaign in 1999, similarly believed that Australians would not vote to become a republic in her lifetime. "She's been an extraordinary head of state", Turnbull said in 2021, "and I think frankly, in Australia, there are more Elizabethans than there are monarchists". Similarly, referendums in both Tuvalu in 2008 and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 2009 saw voters reject proposals to become republics.

Polls in Britain in 2006 and 2007 revealed strong support for the monarchy, and in 2012, Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee year, her approval ratings hit 90 per cent. Her family came under scrutiny again in the last few years of her life due to her son Andrew's association with convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre amidst accusations of sexual impropriety, and her grandson Harry and his wife Meghan's exit from the working royal family and subsequent move to the United States. Polling in Great Britain during the Platinum Jubilee, however, showed support for maintaining the monarchy and Elizabeth's personal popularity remained strong. As of 2021 she remained the third most admired woman in the world according to the annual Gallup poll, her 52 appearances on the list meaning she had been in the top ten more than any other woman in the poll's history.

Elizabeth was portrayed in a variety of media by many notable artists, including painters Pietro Annigoni, Peter Blake, Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, Terence Cuneo, Lucian Freud, Rolf Harris, Damien Hirst, Juliet Pannett and Tai-Shan Schierenberg. Notable photographers of Elizabeth included Cecil Beaton, Yousuf Karsh, Anwar Hussein, Annie Leibovitz, Lord Lichfield, Terry O'Neill, John Swannell and Dorothy Wilding. The first official portrait photograph of Elizabeth was taken by Marcus Adams in 1926.

Titles, styles, honours, and arms

Titles and styles

Elizabeth held many titles and honorary military positions throughout the Commonwealth, was sovereign of many orders in her own countries and received honours and awards from around the world. In each of her realms, she had a distinct title that follows a similar formula: Queen of Saint Lucia and of Her other Realms and Territories in Saint Lucia, Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories in Australia, etc. In the Isle of Man, which is a Crown Dependency rather than a separate realm, she was known as Lord of Mann. Elizabeth was also styled Defender of the Faith.

From 21 April 1944 until her accession, Elizabeth's arms consisted of a lozenge bearing the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom differenced with a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing a Tudor rose and the first and third a cross of St George. Upon her accession, she inherited the various arms her father held as sovereign. Elizabeth also possessed royal standards and personal flags for use in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, and elsewhere.

1. As monarch, Elizabeth was ^ Supreme Governor of the Church of England. She was also a member of the Church of Scotland.

2. Her godparents were: King George V and Queen Mary; Lord Strathmore; ^ Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (her paternal great-granduncle); Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles (her paternal aunt); and Lady Elphinstone (her maternal aunt).

3. Television coverage of the coronation was instrumental in boosting the medium's popularity; the number of ^ television licences in the United Kingdom doubled to 3million, and many of the more than 20million British viewers watched television for the first time in the homes of their friends or neighbours. In North America, almost 100million viewers watched recorded broadcasts.

4. The ^ Sunday Times Rich List 1989 put her number one on the list with a reported wealth of £5.2 billion (approximately £13.8 billion in today's value), but it included state assets like the Royal Collection that were not hers personally. In 1993, Buckingham Palace called estimates of £100 million "grossly overstated". In 1971, Jock Colville, her former private secretary and a director of her bank, Coutts, estimated her wealth at £2 million (equivalent to about £14 million in 1993).

5. The only previous state visit by a British monarch to Russia was made by ^ King Edward VII in 1908. The King never stepped ashore, and met Nicholas II on royal yachts off the Baltic port of what is now Tallinn, Estonia. During the four-day visit, which was considered to be one of the most important foreign trips of Elizabeth's reign, she and Philip attended events in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

References

Bibliography

Crawford, Marion (1950), The Little Princesses, Cassell & Co.

Louda, Jiří; Maclagan, Michael (1999) [1981], Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe (2nd ed.), London: Little, Brown, ISBN 978-0-3168-4820-6

Mitchell, James (2003), "Scotland: Cultural Base and Economic Catalysts", in Hollowell, Jonathan (ed.), Britain Since 1945, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 109-125, doi:10.1002/9780470758328.ch5, ISBN 978-0-6312-0967-6

Nicolson, Harold (1952), King George the Fifth: His Life and Reign, Constable & Co.

Tomaszewski, Fiona K. (2002), A Great Russia: Russia and the Triple Entente, 1905-1914, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-2759-7366-7, archived from the original on 13 January 2023

External links

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Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 - 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states over the course of her lifetime and remained the monarch of 15 realms by the time of her death.

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Joanne Rowling ( ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, had named her the world's highest-paid author.

The novels follow a boy called Harry Potter as he attends Hogwarts (a school for wizards), and battles Lord Voldemort. Death and the divide between good and evil are the central themes of the series. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), school stories, fairy tales, and Christian allegory. The series revived fantasy as a genre in the children's market, spawned a host of imitators, and inspired an active fandom. Critical reception has been more mixed. Many reviewers see Rowling's writing as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive. There were also religious debates over the Harry Potter series.

Rowling has won many accolades for her work. She has received an OBE and made a Companion of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy. Harry Potter brought her wealth and recognition, which she has used to advance philanthropic endeavours and political causes. She co-founded the charity Lumos and established the Volant Charitable Trust, named after her mother. Rowling's charitable giving centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children. In politics, she has donated to Britain's Labour Party and opposed Scottish independence and Brexit. Her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights since 2017 have been described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations. They have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors.

Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling, or Jo. At birth, she had no middle name. Staff at Bloomsbury Publishing suggested that she use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating that young boys - their target audience - would not want to read a book written by a woman. She chose K as the second initial, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Rowling, and because of the ease of pronunciation of two consecutive letters. Following her 2001 remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business.

Life and career

Early life and family

Rowling's parents met on a train from King's Cross station; her portal to the magical world is "Platform 9+ 3⁄4 " at King's Cross.

Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 at Cottage Hospital in Yate, Gloucestershire, to a middle-class family. Her parents Anne ( née Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the previous year on a train, sharing a trip from King's Cross station, London, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland. Rowling's mother was with the Wrens and her father with the Royal Navy. Pete Rowling was the son of a machine-tool setter who later opened a grocery shop. They left the navy life and sought a country home to raise the baby they were expecting, and married on 14 March 1965 when both were 19. The Rowlings settled in Yate, where Pete started work as an assembly-line production worker at the Bristol Siddeley factory. The company became part of Rolls-Royce, and he worked his way into management as a chartered engineer. Anne Rowling later worked as a science technician. Neither of Rowling's parents attended university.

Rowling is two years older than her sister, Dianne. When she was four, Rowling's family moved to Winterbourne, Gloucestershire. She began at St Michael's Church of England Primary School in Winterbourne when she was five. The Rowlings lived near a family called Potter - a name Rowling always liked. Rowling's mother liked to read and the family's homes were filled with books. Her father read The Wind in the Willows to his daughters, while her mother introduced them to the animals in Richard Scarry's books. Rowling's first attempt at writing, a story called "Rabbit" composed when she was six, was inspired by Scarry's creatures.

When Rowling was about nine, the family purchased the historic Church Cottage in Tutshill. In 1974, Rowling began attending the nearby Church of England School. Biographer Sean Smith describes her teacher as a "battleaxe" who "struck fear into the hearts of the children"; she seated Rowling in "dunces' row" after she performed poorly on an arithmetic test. In 1975, Rowling joined a Brownies pack. Its special events and parties, and the pack groups (Fairies, Pixies, Sprites, Elves, Gnomes and Imps) provided a magical world away from her stern teacher. When she was eleven or twelve, she wrote a short story, "The Seven Cursed Diamonds". She later described herself during this period as "the epitome of a bookish child - short and squat, thick National Health glasses, living in a world of complete daydreams".

Secondary school and university

Church Cottage, Rowling's childhood home

Anne had a strong influence on her daughter. Early in Rowling's life, the support of her mother and sister instilled confidence and enthusiasm for storytelling. Anne was a creative and accomplished cook, who helped lead her daughters' Brownie activities, and took a job in the chemistry department at Wyedean while her daughters were there. The three walked to and from school, sharing stories about their day, more like sisters than mother and daughters. John Nettleship, the head of science at Wyedean, described Anne as "absolutely brilliant, a sparkling character ... very imaginative".

Living in a small town with pressures at home, Rowling became more interested in her schoolwork. Steve Eddy, her first secondary school English teacher, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English". Rowling took A-levels in English, French, and German, achieving two As and a B, and was named head girl at Wyedean. She applied to Oxford University in 1982 but was rejected. Biographers attribute her rejection to privilege, as she had attended a state school rather than a private one.

Rowling always wanted to be a writer, but chose to study French and the classics at the University of Exeter for practical reasons, influenced by her parents who thought job prospects would be better with evidence of bilingualism. She later stated that Exeter was not initially what she expected ("to be among lots of similar people - thinking radical thoughts") but that she enjoyed herself after she met more people like her. She was an average student at Exeter, described by biographers as prioritising her social life over her studies, and lacking ambition and enthusiasm. Rowling recalls doing little work at university, preferring to read Dickens and Tolkien. She earned a BA in French from Exeter, graduating in 1987 after a year of study in Paris.

Inspiration and mother's death

After university, Rowling moved to a flat in Clapham Junction with friends, and took a course to become a bilingual secretary. While she was working temp jobs in London, Amnesty International hired her to document human rights issues in French-speaking Africa. She began writing adult novels while working as a temp, although they were never published. In 1990, she planned to move with her boyfriend to Manchester, and frequently took long train trips to visit. In mid-1990, she was on a train delayed by four hours from Manchester to London, when the characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger came plainly into her mind. Having no pen or paper allowed her to fully explore the characters and their story in her imagination before she reached her flat and began to write.

Rowling moved to Manchester around November 1990. She described her time in Manchester, where she worked for the Chamber of Commerce and at Manchester University in temp jobs, as a "year of misery". Her mother died of multiple sclerosis on 30 December 1990. At the time, she was writing Harry Potter and had never told her mother about it. Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing. She later said that her literary creation of the Mirror of Erised is about her mother's death, and noted an "evident parallelism" between Harry confronting his own mortality and her life.

The pain of the loss of her mother was compounded when some personal effects her mother had left her were stolen. With the end of the relationship with her boyfriend, and "being made redundant from an office job in Manchester", Rowling described herself as being in a state of "fight or flight". An advertisement in The Guardian led her to move to Porto, Portugal, in November 1991 to teach night classes in English as a foreign language, writing during the day.

Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood

Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, to teach English.

Her biographer Sean Smith raises the question of why Rowling chose to stay with her sister rather than her father. Rowling has spoken of an estrangement from her father, stating in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that "It wasn't a good relationship from my point of view for a very long time but I had a need to please and I kept that going for a long time and then there ... just came a point at which I had to pull up and say I can't do this anymore." Pete had married his secretary within two years of Anne's death, and The Scotsman reported in 2003 that "[t]he speed of his decision to move in with his secretary ... distressed both sisters and a fault-line now separated them and their father." Rowling said in 2012 that they had not spoken in the last nine years.

Rowling sought government assistance and got £69 (US$103) per week from Social Security; not wanting to burden her recently married sister, she moved to a flat that she described as mouse-ridden. She later described her economic status as being as "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless". Seven years after graduating from university, she saw herself as a failure. Tison Pugh writes that the "grinding effects of poverty, coupled with her concern for providing for her daughter as a single parent, caused great hardship". Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she later described this as "liberating" her to focus on writing. She has said that "Jessica kept me going". Her old school friend, Sean Harris, lent her £600 ($900), which allowed her to move to a flat in Leith, where she finished Philosopher's Stone.

Arantes arrived in Scotland in March 1994 seeking both Rowling and Jessica. On 15 March 1994, Rowling sought an action of interdict (order of restraint); the interdict was granted and Arantes returned to Portugal. Early in the year, Rowling began to experience a deep depression and sought medical help when she contemplated suicide. With nine months of therapy, her mental health gradually improved. She filed for divorce on 10 August 1994; the divorce was finalised on 26 June 1995.

Rowling wanted to finish the book before enrolling in a teacher training course, fearing she might not be able to finish once she started the course. She often wrote in cafés, including Nicolson's, part-owned by her brother-in-law. Secretarial work brought in £15 ($22.50) per week, but she would lose government benefits if she earned more. In mid-1995, a friend gave her money that allowed her to come off benefits and enrol full-time in college. Still needing money and expecting to make a living by teaching, Rowling began a teacher training course in August 1995 at Moray House School of Education after completing her first novel. She earned her teaching certificate in July 1996 and began teaching at Leith Academy. Rowling later said that writing the first Harry Potter book had saved her life and that her concerns about "love, loss, separation, death ... are reflected in the first book".

Publishing Harry Potter

A California bookshop five minutes before Deathly Hallows was released

Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in June 1995. The initial draft included an illustration of Harry by a fireplace, showing a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. Following an enthusiastic report from an early reader, Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to represent Rowling. Her manuscript was submitted to twelve publishers, all of which rejected it. Barry Cunningham, who ran the children's literature department at Bloomsbury Publishing, bought it, after Nigel Newton, who headed Bloomsbury at the time, saw his eight-year-old daughter finish one chapter and want to keep reading. Rowling recalls Cunningham telling her, "You'll never make any money out of children's books, Jo." Rowling was awarded a writer's grant by the Scottish Arts Council to support her childcare costs and finances before Philosopher's Stone's publication, and to aid in writing the sequel, Chamber of Secrets. On 26 June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 5,650 copies. Before Chamber of Secrets was published, Rowling had received £2,800 ($4,200) in royalties.

Philosopher's Stone introduces Harry Potter. Harry is a wizard who lives with his non-magical relatives until his eleventh birthday, when he is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rowling wrote six sequels, which follow Harry's adventures at Hogwarts with friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley and his attempts to defeat Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents when he was a child.

Rowling received the news that the US rights were being auctioned at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. To her surprise and delight, Scholastic Corporation bought the rights for $105,000. She bought a flat in Edinburgh with the money from the sale. Arthur A. Levine, head of the imprint at Scholastic, pushed for a name change. He wanted Harry Potter and the School of Magic; as a compromise Rowling suggested Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Sorcerer's Stone was released in the United States in September 1998. It was not widely reviewed, but the reviews it received were generally positive. Sorcerer's Stone became a New York Times bestseller by December.

The next three books in the series were released in quick succession between 1998 and 2000: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), each selling millions of copies. When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had not appeared by 2002, rumours circulated that Rowling was suffering writer's block. It was published in June 2003, selling millions of copies on the first day. Two years later, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released in July, again selling millions of copies on the first day. The series ended with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in July 2007.

Bus promoting Deathly Hallows - Part 2, 2011

In 1999, Warner Bros. purchased film rights to the first two Harry Potter novels for a reported $1 million. Rowling accepted the offer with the provision that the studio only produce Harry Potter films based on books she authored, while retaining the right to final script approval, and some control over merchandising. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, an adaptation of the first Harry Potter book, was released in November 2001. Steve Kloves wrote the screenplays for all but the fifth film, with Rowling's assistance, ensuring that his scripts kept to the plots of the novels. The film series concluded with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which was adapted in two parts; part one was released on 19 November 2010, and part two followed on 15 July 2011.

Warner Bros. announced an expanded relationship with Rowling in 2013, including a planned series of films about her character Newt Scamander, fictitious author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first film of five, a prequel to the Harry Potter series, set roughly 70 years earlier, was released in November 2016. Rowling wrote the screenplay, which was released as a book. Crimes of Grindelwald was released in November 2018. Secrets of Dumbledore was released in April 2022.

Religion, wealth and remarriage

By 1998, Rowling was portrayed in the media as a "penniless divorcee hitting the jackpot". According to her biographer Sean Smith, the publicity became effective marketing for Harry Potter, but her journey from living on benefits to wealth brought, along with fame, concerns from different groups about the books' portrayals of the occult and gender roles. Ultimately, Smith says that these concerns served to "enhance [her] public profile rather than damage it".

Rowling identifies as a Christian. Although she grew up next door to her church, accounts of the family's church attendance differ. She began attending a Church of Scotland congregation, where Jessica was christened, around the time she was writing Harry Potter. In a 2012 interview, she said she belonged to the Scottish Episcopal Church. Rowling has stated that she believes in God, but has experienced doubt, and that her struggles with faith play a part in her books. She does not believe in magic or witchcraft.

Rowling married Neil Murray, a doctor, in 2001. The couple intended to marry that July in the Galapagos, but when this leaked to the press, they delayed their wedding and changed their holiday destination to Mauritius. After the UK Press Complaints Commission ruled that a magazine had breached Jessica's privacy when the eight-year-old was included in a photograph of the family taken during that trip, Murray and Rowling sought a more private and quiet place to live and work. Rowling bought Killiechassie House and its estate in Perthshire, Scotland, and on 26 December 2001, the couple had a small, private wedding there, officiated by an Episcopalian priest who travelled from Edinburgh. Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born in 2003, and their daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray in 2005.

In 2004, named Rowling "the first billion-dollar author". Rowling denied that she was a billionaire in a 2005 interview. By 2012, Forbes concluded she was no longer a billionaire due to her charitable donations and high UK taxes. She was named the world's highest paid author by Forbes in 2008, 2017 and 2019. Her UK sales total in excess of £238 million, making her the best-selling living author in Britain. The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £820 million, ranking her as the 196th-richest person in the UK. As of 2020, she also owns a £4.5 million Georgian house in Kensington and a £2 million home in Edinburgh.

Adult fiction and Robert Galbraith

In mid-2011, Rowling left Christopher Little Literary Agency and followed her agent Neil Blair to the Blair Partnership. He represented her for the publication of The Casual Vacancy, released in September 2012 by Little, Brown and Company. It was Rowling's first since Harry Potter ended, and her first book for adults. A contemporary take on 19th-century British fiction about village life, Casual Vacancy was promoted as a black comedy, while the critic Ian Parker described it as a "rural comedy of manners". It was adapted to a miniseries co-created by the BBC and HBO.

Little, Brown published The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported début novel of Robert Galbraith, in April 2013. It initially sold 1,500 copies in hardback. After an investigation prompted by discussion on Twitter, the journalist Richard Brooks contacted Rowling's agent, who confirmed Galbraith was Rowling's pseudonym. Rowling later said she enjoyed working as Robert Galbraith, a name she took from Robert F. Kennedy, a personal hero, and Ella Galbraith, a name she invented for herself in childhood. After the revelation of her identity, sales of Cuckoo's Calling escalated.

Continuing the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels, The Silkworm was released in 2014; Career of Evil in 2015; Lethal White in 2018; Troubled Blood in 2020; The Ink Black Heart in 2022; and The Running Grave in 2023. Cormoran Strike, a disabled veteran of the War in Afghanistan with a prosthetic leg, is unfriendly and sometimes oblivious, but acts with a deep moral sensibility. In 2017, BBC One aired the first episode of the five-season series Strike, a television adaptation of the Cormoran Strike novels starring Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger, with a sixth season being shot in 2024. The series was picked up by HBO for distribution in the United States and Canada.

Later Harry Potter works

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in the West End

Pottermore, a website with information and stories about characters in the Harry Potter universe, launched in 2011. On its release, Pottermore was rooted in the Harry Potter novels, tracing the series's story in an interactive format. Its brand was associated with Rowling: she introduced the site in a video as a shared media environment to which she and Harry Potter fans would contribute. The site was substantially revised in 2015 to resemble an encyclopedia of Harry Potter. Beyond encyclopedia content, the post-2015 Pottermore included promotions for Warner Bros. films including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child premiered in the West End in May 2016 and on Broadway in July. At its London premiere, Rowling confirmed that she would not write any more Harry Potter books. Rowling collaborated with writer Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany. Cursed Child's script was published as a book in July 2016. The play follows the friendship between Harry's son Albus and Scorpius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy's son, at Hogwarts.

In April 2023, it was announced that the Harry Potter television series will span 10 years of production and feature a season dedicated to each of the seven Harry Potter books, with Rowling as executive producer. It will release in 2026.

Children's stories

The Ickabog was Rowling's first book aimed at children since Harry Potter. Ickabog is a monster that turns out to be real; a group of children find out the truth about the Ickabog and save the day. Rowling released The Ickabog for free online in mid-2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom. She began writing it in 2009 but set it aside to focus on other works including Casual Vacancy. Scholastic held a competition to select children's art for the print edition, which was published in the US and Canada on 10 November 2020. Profits went to charities focused on COVID-19 relief.

In The Christmas Pig, a young boy loses his favourite stuffed animal, a pig, and the Christmas Pig guides him through the fantastical Land of the Lost to retrieve it. The novel was published on 12 October 2021 and became a bestseller in the UK and the US.

Influences

Rowling has named Jessica Mitford as her greatest influence. She said Mitford had "been my heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing how Mitford had run away at the age of 19 to fight with the Reds in the Spanish Civil War", and that what inspired her about Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent, she liked nothing better than a good fight, preferably against a pompous and hypocritical target". As a child, Rowling read C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, by Paul Gallico, and books by E. Nesbit and Noel Streatfeild. Rowling describes Jane Austen as her "favourite author of all time".

Rowling acknowledges Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare as literary influences. Scholars agree that Harry Potter is heavily influenced by the children's fantasy of writers such as Lewis, Goudge, Nesbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Diana Wynne Jones. According to the critic Beatrice Groves, Harry Potter is also "rooted in the Western literary tradition", including the classics. Commentators also note similarities to the children's stories of Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. Rowling expresses admiration for Lewis, in whose writing battles between good and evil are also prominent, but rejects any connection with Dahl.

Earlier works prominently featuring characters who learn to use magic include Le Guin's series, in which a school of wizardry also appears, and the Chrestomanci books by Jones. Rowling's setting of a "school of witchcraft and wizardry" departs from the still older tradition of protagonists as apprentices to magicians, exemplified by The Sorcerer's Apprentice: yet this trope does appear in Harry Potter, when Harry receives individual instruction from Remus Lupin and other teachers. Rowling also draws on the tradition of stories set in boarding schools, a major example of which is Thomas Hughes's 1857 volume Tom Brown's School Days.

Style and themes

Style and allusions

Rowling is known primarily as an author of fantasy and children's literature. Her writing in other genres, including literary fiction and murder mystery, has received less critical attention. Rowling's most famous work, Harry Potter, has been defined as a fairy tale, a Bildungsroman and a boarding-school story. Her other writings have been described by Pugh as gritty contemporary fiction with historical influences ( The Casual Vacancy) and hardboiled detective fiction ( Cormoran Strike).

In Harry Potter, Rowling juxtaposes the extraordinary against the ordinary. Her narrative features two worlds - the mundane and the fantastic - but it differs from typical portal fantasy in that its magical elements stay grounded in the everyday. Paintings move and talk; books bite readers; letters shout messages; and maps show live journeys, making the wizarding world "both exotic and cosily familiar" according to the scholar Catherine Butler. This blend of realistic and romantic elements extends to Rowling's characters. Their names often include morphemes that correspond to their characteristics: Malfoy is difficult, Filch unpleasant and Lupin a werewolf. Harry is ordinary and relatable, with down-to-earth features such as wearing broken glasses; Roni Natov terms him an "everychild". These elements serve to highlight Harry when he is heroic, making him both an everyman and a fairytale hero.

Arthurian, Christian and fairytale motifs are frequently found in Rowling's writing. Harry's ability to draw the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat resembles the Arthurian sword in the stone legend. His life with the Dursleys has been compared to Cinderella. Like C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter contains Christian symbolism and allegory. The series has been viewed as a Christian moral fable in the psychomachia tradition, in which stand-ins for good and evil fight for supremacy over a person's soul. The critic of children's literature Joy Farmer sees parallels between Harry and Jesus Christ. Comparing Rowling with Lewis, she argues that "magic is both authors' way of talking about spiritual reality". According to Maria Nikolajeva, Christian imagery is particularly strong in the final scenes of the series: she writes that Harry dies in self-sacrifice and Voldemort delivers an ecce homo speech, after which Harry is resurrected and defeats his enemy.

Death is Rowling's overarching theme in Harry Potter. In the first book, when Harry looks into the Mirror of Erised, he feels both joy and "a terrible sadness" at seeing his desire: his parents, alive and with him. Confronting their loss is central to Harry's character arc and manifests in different ways through the series, such as in his struggles with Dementors. Other characters in Harry's life die; he even faces his own death in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The series has an existential perspective - Harry must grow mature enough to accept death. In Harry's world, death is not binary but mutable, a state that exists in degrees. Unlike Voldemort, who evades death by separating and hiding his soul in seven parts, Harry's soul is whole, nourished by friendship and love. Love distinguishes the two characters. Harry is a hero because he loves others, even willing to accept death to save them; Voldemort is a villain because he does not.

While Harry Potter can be viewed as a story about good versus evil, its moral divisions are not absolute. First impressions of characters are often misleading. Harry assumes in the first book that Quirrell is good because he opposes Snape, who appears malicious; in reality, their positions are reversed. This pattern later recurs with Moody and Snape. In Rowling's world, good and evil are choices rather than inherent attributes: second chances and redemption are key themes of the series. This is reflected in Harry's self-doubts after learning his connections to Voldemort, such as the ability of both to communicate with snakes in their language of Parseltongue; and prominently in Snape's characterisation, which has been described as complex and multifaceted. In some scholars' view, while Rowling's narrative appears on the surface to be about Harry, her focus may actually be on Snape's morality and character arc.

Rowling has enjoyed enormous commercial success as an author. Her Harry Potter series topped bestseller lists, spawned a global media franchise including films and video games, and had been translated into 84 languages by 2023. The first three Harry Potter books occupied the top three spots of The New York Times bestseller list for more than a year; they were then moved to a newly created children's list. The final four books each set records as the fastest-selling books in the UK or US, and the series as a whole had sold more than 600 million copies as of 2023. Neither of Rowling's later works, The Casual Vacancy and the Cormoran Strike series, has been as successful, though Casual Vacancy was still a bestseller in the UK within weeks of its release. Harry Potter's popularity has been attributed to factors including the nostalgia evoked by the boarding-school story, the endearing nature of Rowling's characters, and the accessibility of her books to a variety of readers. According to Julia Eccleshare, the books are "neither too literary nor too popular, too difficult nor too easy, neither too young nor too old", and hence bridge traditional reading divides.

Critical response to Harry Potter has been more mixed. Harold Bloom regarded Rowling's prose as poor and her plots as conventional, while Jack Zipes argues that the series would not be successful if it were not formulaic. Zipes states that the early novels have the same plot: in each book, Harry escapes the Dursleys to visit Hogwarts, where he confronts Lord Voldemort and then heads back successful. Rowling's prose has been described as simple and not innovative; Le Guin, like several other critics, considered it "stylistically ordinary". According to the novelist A. S. Byatt, the books reflect a dumbed-down culture dominated by soap operas and reality television. Thus, some critics argue, Harry Potter does not innovate on established literary forms; nor does it challenge readers' preconceived ideas. Conversely, the scholar Philip Nel rejects such critiques as "snobbery" that reacts to the novels' popularity, whereas Mary Pharr argues that Harry Potter's conventionalism is the point: by amalgamating literary forms familiar to her readers, Rowling invites them to "ponder their own ideas". Other critics who see artistic merit in Rowling's writing include Marina Warner, who views Harry Potter as part of an "alternative genealogy" of English literature that she traces from Edmund Spenser to Christina Rossetti. Michiko Kakutani praises Rowling's fictional world and the darker tone of the series' later entries.

Reception of Rowling's later works has varied among critics. The Casual Vacancy, her attempt at literary fiction, drew mixed reviews. Some critics praised its characterisation, while others stated that it would have been better if it had contained magic. The Cormoran Strike series was more warmly received as a work of British detective fiction, even as some reviewers noted that its plots are occasionally contrived. Theatrical reviews of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child were highly positive. Fans have been more critical of the play's use of time travel, changes to characters' personalities, and perceived queerbaiting in Albus and Scorpius's relationship, leading some to question its connection to the Harry Potter canon.

Gender and social division

Rowling's portrayal of women in Harry Potter has been described as complex and varied, but nonetheless conforming to stereotypical and patriarchal depictions of gender. Gender divides are ostensibly absent in the books: Hogwarts is coeducational and women hold positions of power in wizarding society. However, this setting obscures the typecasting of female characters and the general depiction of conventional gender roles. According to the scholars Elizabeth Heilman and Trevor Donaldson, the subordination of female characters goes further early in the series. The final three books "showcase richer roles and more powerful females": for instance, the series' "most matriarchal character", Molly Weasley, engages substantially in the final battle of Deathly Hallows, while other women are shown as leaders. Hermione Granger, in particular, becomes an active and independent character essential to the protagonists' battle against evil. Yet, even particularly capable female characters such as Hermione and Minerva McGonagall are placed in supporting roles, and Hermione's status as a feminist model is debated. Girls and women are frequently shown as emotional, defined by their appearance, and denied agency in family settings.

The social hierarchies in Rowling's magical world have been a matter of debate among scholars and critics. The primary antagonists of Harry Potter, Voldemort and his followers, believe blood purity is paramount, and that non-wizards, or "muggles", are subhuman. Their ideology of racial difference is depicted as unambiguously evil. However, the series cannot wholly reject racial division, according to several scholars, as it still depicts wizards as fundamentally superior to muggles. Blake and Zipes argue that numerous examples of wizardly superiority are depicted as "natural and comfortable". Thus, according to Gupta, Harry Potter depicts superior races as having a moral obligation of tolerance and altruism towards lesser races, rather than explicitly depicting equality.

Rowling's depictions of the status of magical non-humans is similarly debated. Discussing the slavery of house-elves within Harry Potter, scholars such as Brycchan Carey have praised the books' abolitionist sentiments, viewing Hermione's Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare as a model for younger readers' political engagement. Other critics, including Farah Mendlesohn, find the portrayal of house-elves extremely troublesome; they are written as happy in their slavery, and Hermione's efforts on their behalf are implied to be naïve. Pharr terms the house-elves a disharmonious element in the series, writing that Rowling leaves their fate hanging; at the end of Deathly Hallows, the elves remain enslaved and cheerful. More generally, the subordination of magical non-humans remains in place, unchanged by the defeat of Voldemort. Thus, scholars suggest, the series's message is essentially conservative; it sees no reason to transform social hierarchies, only being concerned with who holds positions of power.

Religious reactions

There have been attempts to ban Harry Potter around the world, especially in the United States, and in the Bible Belt in particular. The series topped the American Library Association's list of most challenged books in the first three years of its publication. In the following years, parents in several US cities launched protests against teaching it in schools. Some Christian critics, particularly Evangelical Christians, have claimed that the novels promote witchcraft and harm children; similar opposition has been expressed to the film adaptations. Criticism has taken two main forms: allegations that Harry Potter is a pagan text; and claims that it encourages children to oppose authority, derived mainly from Harry's rejection of the Dursleys, his adoptive parents. The author and scholar Amanda Cockrell suggests that Harry Potter's popularity, and recent preoccupation with fantasy and the occult among Christian fundamentalists, explains why the series received particular opposition. Some groups of Shia and Sunni Muslims also argued that the series contained satanic subtext, and it was banned in private schools in the United Arab Emirates.

The Harry Potter books also have a group of vocal religious supporters who believe that Harry Potter espouses Christian values, or that the Bible does not prohibit the forms of magic described in the series. Christian analyses of the series have argued that it embraces ideals of friendship, loyalty, courage, love, and the temptation of power. After the final volume was published, Rowling said she intentionally incorporated Christian themes, in particular the idea that love may hold power over death. According to Farmer, it is a profound misreading to think that Harry Potter promotes witchcraft. The scholar Em McAvan writes that evangelical objections to Harry Potter are superficial, based on the presence of magic in the books: they do not attempt to understand the moral messages in the series.

Sculpture of Harry Potter in Leicester Square, London, 2020

Rowling's Harry Potter series has been credited with a resurgence in crossover fiction: children's literature with an adult appeal. Crossovers were prevalent in 19th-century American and British fiction, but fell out of favour in the 20th century and did not occur at the same scale. The post- Harry Potter crossover trend is associated with the fantasy genre. In the 1970s, children's books were generally realistic as opposed to fantastic, while adult fantasy became popular because of the influence of The Lord of the Rings. The next decade saw an increasing interest in grim, realist themes, with an outflow of fantasy readers and writers to adult works.

The commercial success of Harry Potter in 1997 reversed this trend. The scale of its growth had no precedent in the children's market: within four years, it occupied 28% of that field by revenue. Children's literature rose in cultural status, and fantasy became a dominant genre. Older works of children's fantasy, including Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series and Diane Duane's Young Wizards, were reprinted and rose in popularity; some authors re-established their careers. In the following decades, many Harry Potter imitators and subversive responses grew popular.

Rowling has been compared with Enid Blyton, who also wrote in simple language about groups of children and long held sway over the British children's market. She has also been described as an heir to Roald Dahl. Some critics view Harry Potter's rise, along with the concurrent success of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, as part of a broader shift in reading tastes: a rejection of literary fiction in favour of plot and adventure. This is reflected in the BBC's 2003 " Big Read" survey of the UK's favourite books, where Pullman and Rowling ranked at numbers 3 and 5, respectively, with very few British literary classics in the top 10.

Harry Potter's popularity led its publishers to plan elaborate releases and spawned a textual afterlife among fans and forgers. Beginning with the release of Prisoner of Azkaban on 8 July 1999 at 3:45 pm, its publishers coordinated selling the books at the same time globally, introduced security protocols to prevent premature purchases, and required booksellers to agree not to sell copies before the appointed time. Driven by the growth of the internet, fan fiction about the series proliferated and has spawned a diverse community of readers and writers. While Rowling has supported fan fiction, her statements about characters - for instance, that Harry and Hermione could have been a couple, and that Dumbledore was gay - have complicated her relationship with readers. According to scholars, this shows that modern readers feel a sense of ownership over the text that is independent of, and sometimes contradicts, authorial intent.

Legal disputes

In the 1990s and 2000s, Rowling was both a plaintiff and defendant in lawsuits alleging copyright infringement. Nancy Stouffer sued Rowling in 1999, alleging that Harry Potter was based on stories she published in 1984. Rowling won in September 2002. Richard Posner describes Stouffer's suit as deeply flawed and notes that the court, finding she had used "forged and altered documents", assessed a $50,000 penalty against her.

With her literary agents and Warner Bros., Rowling has brought legal action against publishers and writers of Harry Potter knockoffs in several countries. In the mid-2000s, Rowling and her publishers obtained a series of injunctions prohibiting sales or published reviews of her books before their official release dates.

Beginning in 2001, after Rowling sold film rights to Warner Bros., the studio tried to take Harry Potter fan sites offline unless it determined that they were made by "authentic" fans for innocuous purposes. In 2007, with Warner Bros., Rowling started proceedings to cease publication of a book based on content from a fan site called The Harry Potter Lexicon. The court held that Lexicon was neither a fair use of Rowling's material nor a derivative work, but it did not prevent the book from being published in a different form. Lexicon was published in 2009.

Philanthropy

Aware of the good fortune that led to her wealth and fame, Rowling wanted to use her public image to help others despite her concerns about publicity and the press; she became, in the words of Smith, "emboldened ... to stand up and be counted on issues that were important to her". Rowling's charitable donations before 2012 were estimated by Forbes at $160 million. She was the second most generous UK donor in 2015 (following the singer Elton John), giving about $14 million.

Long interested in issues affecting women and children, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust in 2000, named after her mother to address social deprivation in at-risk women, children and youth. She was appointed president of One Parent Families (now Gingerbread) in 2004, after becoming its first ambassador in 2000. She collaborated with Sarah Brown on a book of children's stories to benefit One Parent Families. Together with the MEP Emma Nicholson, Rowling founded the charity now known as Lumos in 2005. Lumos has worked with an orphanage west of Kyiv, Ukraine since 2013; after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rowling offered to personally match up to £1million in donations to Lumos for Ukraine. Later in 2022, during her advocacy against the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, Rowling stated she had founded and would fund Beira's Place, a women-centred rape help center to provide free support services for biological women survivors of sexual violence. She has donated several hundred thousand pounds to help women lawyers flee from the Taliban's control, helping hundreds of Afghans escape.

Rowling has made donations to support other medical causes. She named another institution after her mother in 2010, when she donated £10 million to found a multiple sclerosis research centre at the University of Edinburgh. She gave an additional £15.3 million to the centre in 2019. During the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, accompanied by an inflatable representation of Lord Voldemort, she read from as part of a tribute to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. To support COVID-19 relief, she donated six-figure sums to both Khalsa Aid and the British Asian Trust from royalties for The Ickabog.

Several publications in the Harry Potter universe have been sold for charitable purposes. Profits from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, both published in 2001, went to Comic Relief. To support Children's Voice, later renamed Lumos, Rowling sold a deluxe copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard at auction in 2007. Amazon's £1.95 million purchase set a record for a contemporary literary work and for children's literature. Rowling published the book and, in 2013, donated the proceeds of nearly £19 million (then about $30 million) to Lumos. Rowling and 12 other writers composed short pieces in 2008 to be sold to benefit Dyslexia Action and English PEN. Rowling's contribution was an 800-word Harry Potter prequel. When the revelation that Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling led to an increase in sales, she donated the royalties to ABF The Soldiers' Charity (formerly the Army Benevolent Fund).

Rowling was actively engaged on the internet before author webpages were common. She has at times used Twitter unreservedly to reach her Harry Potter fans and followers.

In 2008, Rowling donated £1 million to the Labour Party, endorsed the Labour prime minister Gordon Brown over his Conservative challenger David Cameron, and commended Labour's policies on child poverty. When asked about the 2008 United States presidential election, she stated that "it is a pity that Clinton and Obama have to be rivals because both are extraordinary."

In her "Single mother's manifesto" published in The Times in 2010, Rowling criticised the prime minister David Cameron's plan to offer married couples an annual tax credit. She thought that the proposal discriminated against single parents, whose interests the Conservative Party failed to consider.

Rowling opposed the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, due to concerns about the economic consequences, and donated £1 million to the Better Together anti-independence campaign. She campaigned for the UK to stay in the European Union in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. She defined herself as an internationalist, "the mongrel product of this European continent", and expressed concern that "racists and bigots" were directing parts of the Leave campaign.

She opposed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but refused to support a cultural boycott of Israel in 2015, believing that depriving Israelis of shared culture would not dislodge him. In 2015, Rowling joined 150 others in signing a letter published in The Guardian in favour of cultural engagement with Israel.

Rowling has a difficult relationship with the press and has tried to influence the type of coverage she receives. She described herself in 2003 as "too thin-skinned". As of 2011, she had taken more than 50 actions against the press. Rowling dislikes the British tabloid the , which she successfully sued in 2014 for libel about her time as a single mother.

The Leveson Inquiry, an investigation of the British press, named Rowling as a "core participant" in 2011. She was one of many celebrities alleged to have been victims of phone hacking. In 2012, she wrote an op-ed for The Guardian in response to Cameron's decision not to implement all the inquiry's recommendations. She reaffirmed her stance on " Hacked Off", a campaign supporting the self-regulation of the press, by co-signing a 2014 declaration to "[safeguard] the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable" with other British celebrities.

Transgender people

Rowling has gender-critical views, and therefore opposes many proposed laws that would make it simpler for transgender people to transition. These views have attracted widespread criticism and are often described as transphobic or anti-trans, though Rowling disputes this.

Friction over Rowling's gender-critical writings surged in 2019 when she defended Maya Forstater, whose employment contract was not renewed after she made anti-trans statements. Rowling wrote that transgender people should live in "peace and security", but said she opposed "forc[ing] women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real". According to Harry Potter scholar Lana Whited, in the next six months "Rowling herself fanned the flames as she became increasingly vocal". In June 2020, Rowling mocked the phrase " people who menstruate", and tweeted that women's rights and "lived reality" would be "erased" if "sex isn't real". In April 2024, responding to Scotland's Hate Crime and Public Order Act, she tweeted a list of trans women, writing that they are "men, every last one of them".

Rowling believes that making it simpler for transgender people to transition could impinge on access to female-only spaces and legal protections for women. She opposes legislation to advance gender self-recognition and enable transition without a medical diagnosis. On social media, Rowling suggests that children and cisgender women are threatened by trans women and trans-positive messages.

Rowling's views have fuelled debates on freedom of speech and academic freedom, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts and culture sectors. She has been the target of widespread condemnation for her comments on transgender people. This negative reaction has included insults and threats, including death threats. Criticism came from Harry Potter fansites, LGBT charities, leading actors of the Wizarding World, and Human Rights Campaign. After Kerry Kennedy expressed "profound disappointment" in her views, Rowling returned the Ripple of Hope Award given to her by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organisation. Despite the controversy, sales of Harry Potter books have been unaffected.

Rowling denies being transphobic. In an essay posted on her website in June 2020 - which left trans people feeling betrayed - Rowling said her views on women's rights sprang from survivorship of domestic abuse and sexual assault. While affirming that "the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable ... Trans people need and deserve protection", she wrote that it would be unsafe to allow "any man who believes or feels he's a woman" into bathrooms or changing rooms. Writing of her own experiences with sexism and misogyny, she wondered if the "allure of escaping womanhood" would have led her to transition if she had been born later, and said that trans activism was "seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class". Whited asserted in 2024 that Rowling's sometimes "flippant" and "simplistic understanding of gender identity" had permanently changed her "relationship not only with fans, readers, and scholars ... but also with her works themselves".

Awards and honours

Rowling after receiving an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen in 2006

Rowling's Harry Potter series has won awards for general literature, children's literature, and speculative fiction. It has earned multiple British Book Awards, beginning with the Children's Book of the Year for the first two volumes, Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. The third novel, Prisoner of Azkaban, was nominated for an adult award, the Whitbread Book of the Year, where it competed against the Nobel prize laureate Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. The award body gave Rowling the children's prize instead (worth half the cash amount), which some scholars felt exemplified a literary prejudice against children's books. She won the World Science Fiction Convention's Hugo Award for the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, and the British Book Awards' adult prize - the Book of the Year - for the sixth novel, Half-Blood Prince.

Rowling was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours for services to children's literature, and three years later received Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for Concord. Following the conclusion of the Harry Potter series, she won the Outstanding Achievement prize at the 2008 British Book Awards. The next year, she was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and leading magazine editors named her the "Most Influential Woman in the UK" in 2010. For services to literature and philanthropy, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2017.

Many academic institutions have bestowed honorary degrees on Rowling, including her alma mater, the University of Exeter, and Harvard University, where she spoke at the 2008 commencement ceremony. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (HonFRSE), and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE).

Rowling shared the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema with the cast and crew of the Harry Potter films in 2011. Her other awards include the 2017 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the 2021 British Book Awards' Crime and Thriller prize for the fifth volume of her Cormoran Strike series.

Bibliography

Filmography

Television

1. Moray House was then part of Heriot-Watt University and later became part of the University of Edinburgh.

2. Sources differ on the precise name of Rowling's place of birth. As of January 2022, Rowling's personal website said she was born at "Yate General Hospital near Bristol". She has sometimes said she was born in ^ Chipping Sodbury, which is near Yate. Tison Pugh says she was born in Chipping Sodbury General Hospital. The Scotsman lists Cottage Hospital in Chipping Sodbury. Biographer Smith describes Chipping Sodbury as "Yate's elegant neighbor", and reproduces a birth certificate that says District Sodbury, but lists the hospital as Cottage Hospital, 240 Station Road, Yate. According to Smith: "... the [BBC Television] documentary still erroneously claimed that Joanne was born in Chipping Sodbury. Yet despite the mistake, the good folk of Yate are pressing for some kind of plaque or feature in their town to record it as her place of birth."

3. St Michael's Primary School headmaster, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the ^ Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore; biographer Smith writes that Rowling's father, and other figures in her education, provide more likely examples.

4. Smith describes Tutshill as "staunchly middle class", and Parker describes Church Cottage as a "handsome ^ Gothic Revival cottage". In 2020, it was reported that a company listing Rowling's husband, Neil Murray, as director had purchased Church Cottage and renovations were underway.

5. Pugh writes that "Rowling reportedly modeled the strict pedagogical style of ^ Severus Snape after [Sylvia] Morgan's methods." Kirk states that "Jo has admitted modeling Professor Snape on a few of her most memorable and least favorite people from her past, and she has said that Mrs. Morgan ... was definitely one of them." According to Smith, "Aspects of Mrs Morgan's fearsome character are embodied in the Hogwarts' Potions master, Professor Severus Snape."

6. Smith compares the place meals held in the Rowling household and the descriptions of food in ^ The Little White Horse to the elaborate food prepared for Hogwarts pupils.

7. Rowling later described Harris as her "getaway driver and foul weather friend"; his Anglia inspired a flying version that appeared in ^ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a symbol of escape and rescue.

8. Rowling says that Jessica was named after Mitford and a boy would have been named Harry; according to Smith (2002), Arantes says that Jessica was named after ^ Jezebel from the Bible.

9. The depression inspired the ^ Dementors - soul-sucking creatures introduced in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

10. The Scottish Arts Council grant was after Rowling had a contract for publication of ^ Philosopher's Stone but before it was published.

11. ^ Smith writes that the Rowling sisters "never attended Sunday school or services", and Parker writes that the other Rowling family members were not regular churchgoers, but that "Rowling regularly attended services in the church next door".

12. While noting the prevalent view that ^ Harry Potter catalysed this change, the critic Rachel Falconer also credits socio-economic factors. In her view, Rowling's success is part of "a larger cultural change in contemporary Western society which accords greater weight and value to the signifier, the 'child', than in previous decades".

13. A tribunal ruled in 2021 that Forstater's gender-critical views were protected under the 2010 UK ^ Equality Act. In July 2022, a new tribunal decision was published (Forstater v Center for Global Development Europe) ruling that Forstater had suffered direct discrimination from her employer.

14. The laws and proposed changes are the UK ^ Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Scotland Gender Recognition Reform Bill; related also are the UK Equality Act 2010 and the Scotland Gender Representation on Public Boards Act of 2018.

References

1. Smith 2002, pp. 104-5 says ^ Clapham; Kirk 2003, p. 49 says Clapham but p. 67 says Clapham Junction. Rowling tweeted in 2020 that she first put pen to paper in Clapham Junction.

2. Rowling, JK (June 2008). "JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure". TED. Archived from the original on 30 April 2011. Failure & imagination

3. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (28 October 2021). "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone review - 20 years on, it's a nostalgic spectacular". The Guardian.

4. ^ Barnes, Brooks (21 November 2010). "'Harry Potter' has $330 million debut weekend". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 November 2010.

5. ^ "JK Rowling plans five Fantastic Beasts films". BBC News. 14 October 2016. Archived from the original on 24 November 2016.

6. ^ Dargis, Manohla (8 November 2018). "'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald' review: apocalypse too soon". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2018.

7. Crouch, Aaron (22 September 2021). "'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore' sets new 2022 release date". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 22 September 2021.

8. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (26 October 2016). "HBO picks up 'Cormoran Strike' crama based on J.K. Rowling's crime novels". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 12 January 2017.

9. ^ Weprin, Alex (23 February 2024). "Harry Potter TV Series Aiming for 2026 Debut on Max". The Hollywood Reporter.

10. ^ Otterson, Joe (12 April 2023). "'Harry Potter' series adaptation officially ordered at HBO Max, will feature entirely new cast". .

11. ^ Spangler, Todd (23 February 2024). "Harry Potter TV Series Targeted for 2026 Premiere on Max, J.K. Rowling Recently Met With Studio Execs to Discuss Show". Variety.

12. ^ Seymour, Miranda (12 October 2021). "In J.K. Rowling's latest fantasy novel, pigs do fly". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 12 October 2021.

13. ^ Ostry 2003, pp. 95-98; Blake 2002, pp. 104-106; Gupta 2009, pp. 105-107; Mendlesohn 2002, pp. 176-177; Nikolajeva 2008, pp. 237-239.

14. ^ Ostry 2003, pp. 95-98; Applebaum 2008, pp. 92-93; Heilman & Donaldson 2008, pp. 140-142; Horne 2010, pp. 96-97; Mendlesohn 2002, pp. 180-182.

15. ^ "Elton John, JK Rowling top list of charitable UK celebrities in 2015". EFE News Service. 17 April 2016. ProQuest 1781399093. Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, allocated around $14 million for the benefit of two NGOs; the Lumos Foundation, which aims to end the institutionalizing of children by 2050, and the Volant Charitable Trust, which funds projects that alleviate social deprivation, as well as research into multiple sclerosis.

16. ^ Siad, Arnaud; Hodge, Nathan; Owoseje, Toyin (25 March 2022). "J.K. Rowling hits back at Putin after he likened Russia to her in rant against cancel culture". CNN. Rowling previously revealed that her children's charity, Lumos, had been working with the Ukrainian government since 2013

17. ^ Leach, Ben (20 September 2008). "Harry Potter author JK Rowling gives £1 million to Labour". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 20 September 2008.

18. ^ Treneman, Ann (20 June 2003). "I'm not writing for the money: It's for me and out of loyalty to fans". . ProQuest 318891545; Gale IF0501604890.

19. ^ O'Carroll, Lisa (14 September 2011). "Leveson phone-hacking inquiry: JK Rowling among 'core participants'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 June 2014.

20. ^ Sanderson, Daniel; Bolton, Will (23 June 2024). "Edinburgh Fringe venue threatens to pull play about JK Rowling's trans rows". The Telegraph.

21. ^ "'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald': On the red carpet for the Paris premiere". . 13 November 2018.

22. ^ Rowling, J.K. (26 November 2006). "The first it girl: J. K. Rowling reviews Decca: the Letters by Jessica Mitford". The Daily Telegraph.

23. ^ Crouch, Aaron (22 September 2021). "'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore' sets new 2022 release date". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 22 September 2021.

Works cited

Books

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Barratt, Bethany (2012). The Politics of Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137016546. ISBN 978-0-230-60899-3.

Bell, Christopher, ed. (2012). Hermione Granger Saves the World: Essays on the Feminist Heroine of Hogwarts. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-7137-9.

Bell, Christopher; Alexander, Julie. Introduction. In Bell 2012.

Berents, Helen. "Hermione Granger goes to war". In Bell 2012.

Berberich, Christine, ed. (2015). The Bloomsbury Introduction to Popular Fiction. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4411-5567-2.

Brummitt, Cassie; Sellars, Kieran (1 December 2019). "'Friends? Always': queerbaiting, ambiguity, and erasure in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". In Brennan, Joseph (ed.). Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 978-1-60938-672-6. OCLC 1104912811.

Butler, Catherine (2012). "Modern children's fantasy". In James, Edward; Mendlesohn, Farah (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCOL9780521429597. ISBN 978-0-521-42959-7.

Errington, Philip W. (2017). J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4742-9738-7.

Falconer, Rachel (2010). "Young adult fiction and the crossover phenomenon". In Rudd, David (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Children's Literature. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203889855. ISBN 978-0-203-88985-5. S2CID 220952112.

Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-174437-2. OCLC 921452204.

Alton, Anne Hiebert. "Playing the genre game: generic fusions of the Harry Potter series". In Heilman 2008.

Applebaum, Peter. "The great Snape debate". In Heilman 2008.

Birch, Megan L. "Schooling Harry Potter: teachers and learning, power and knowledge". In Heilman 2008.

Ciaccio, Peter. "Harry Potter and Christian theology". In Heilman 2008.

Dendle, Peter. "Monsters, creatures, and pets at Hogwarts: animal stewardship in the world of Harry Potter". In Heilman 2008.

Heilman, Elizabeth E.; Donaldson, Trevor. "From sexist to (sort-of) feminist representations of gender in the Harry Potter series". In Heilman 2008.

Nikolajeva, Maria. "Harry Potter and the secrets of children's literature". In Heilman 2008.

Taub, Deborah J.; Servaty-Seib, Heather L. "Controversial content: is Harry Potter harmful to children?". In Heilman 2008.

Levy, Michael; Mendlesohn, Farah (2016). Children's Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139087421. ISBN 978-1-107-01814-3.

Mamary, Anne J. M., ed. (22 December 2020). "Introduction". The Alchemical Harry Potter: Essays on Transfiguration in J. K. Rowling's Novels. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-8134-4. OCLC 1155570319.

McAvan, Em (2012). "Harry Potter and the origins of the occult". In Hallett, Cynthia J.; Huey, Peggy J. (eds.). J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-69345-2.

Mendlesohn, Farah; James, Edward (2012). A Short History of Fantasy. Libri Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907471-66-7. OCLC 857653620.

Pugh, Tison (2020). Harry Potter and Beyond: On J. K. Rowling's Fantasies and Other Fictions. University of South Carolina Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvs09qwv. ISBN 978-1-64336-088-1. OCLC 1142046769. S2CID 225791872.

Salter, Anastasia; Stanfill, Mel (16 October 2020). A Portrait of the Auteur as Fanboy: The Construction of Authorship in Transmedia Franchises. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-4968-3051-7. OCLC 1178868864.

Stableford, Brian M. (2009). The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6345-3. OCLC 1200815959.

Striphas, Theodore G. (2009). "Harry Potter and the culture of the copy". The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control. Columbia University Press. pp. 141-174. ISBN 978-0-231-14814-6. OCLC 256532755.

Thomas, Ebony Elizabeth (2019). The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-0065-0. OCLC 1104862747.

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Journal articles

Birch, Chellyce (2016). "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". Limina. 22 (1): 96-97.

Brummitt, Cassie (2016). "Pottermore: transmedia storytelling and authorship in Harry Potter". The Midwest Quarterly. 58 (1). ProQuest 1832925509.

Cockrell, Amanda (February 2006). "Harry Potter and the witch hunters: a social context for the attacks on Harry Potter". The Journal of American Culture. 29 (6): 24-30. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.2006.00272.x.

Duggan, Jennifer (28 March 2021). "Transformative readings: Harry Potter fan fiction, trans/queer reader response, and J. K. Rowling". Children's Literature in Education. 53 (2): 147-168. doi:10.1007/s10583-021-09446-9. PMC . PMID 35645426. S2CID 233661189.

Eberhardt, Maeve (2017). "Gendered representations through speech: The case of the Harry Potter series". Language and Literature. 26 (3): 227-246. doi:10.1177/0963947017701851. S2CID 149129001.

Farmer, Joy (2001). "The magician's niece: the kinship between J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis". . 23 (2): 53-64. JSTOR 26814627.

Horne, Jackie C. (2010). "Harry and the other: answering the race question in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter". The Lion and the Unicorn. 34 (1): 76-104. doi:10.1353/uni.0.0488. S2CID 143738308. ProQuest 221753179.

Los, Fraser (2008). "Harry Potter and the nature of death". Alternatives Journal. 34 (1): 32-33. JSTOR 45033580.

Molin, Peter C. (2015). "A 'phrase too cute to do our ugliness justice': portraying 'wounded warriors' in contemporary war fiction" (PDF). War, Literature & the Arts. 27: 1-21. ProQuest 1813553141. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2022.

Nel, Philip (2005). "Is there a text in this advertising campaign?: literature, marketing, and Harry Potter". The Lion and the Unicorn. 29 (2): 236-267. doi:10.1353/uni.2005.0031. S2CID 143828096. ProQuest 221753999.

Pape, Madeleine (2022). "Feminism, trans justice, and speech rights: a comparative perspective". Law and Contemporary Problems. 85 (1): 215-240.

Pedersen, Sarah (2022). "'They've got an absolute army of women behind them': the formation of a women's cooperative constellation in contemporary Scotland". Scottish Affairs. 31 (1): 1-20. doi:10.3366/scot.2022.0394. S2CID 246762983.

Pugh, Tison; Wallace, David L. (Fall 2006). "Heteronormative heroism and queering the school story in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 31 (3): 260-281. doi:10.1353/chq.2006.0053. S2CID 143508785.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Joanne Rowling ( ROH-ling ; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter , a seven-volume fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games.