UK, well done.

World Alert July 5, 12:25 p.m. EDT

Britain plans to end legal mandates for masks and social distancing on July 19, Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Britain has had one of the longest, most restrictive lockdowns in the world. Now the government will treat covid more like the seasonal flu, with ministers telling the public to "learn to live with the virus." About 85 percent of Britain's adult population has had a first vaccine dose. Read more

The special relationship

        New York Times

BREAKING NEWS

President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson will announce a renewed Atlantic Charter, reaffirming a “special relationship.” Follow our updates.

Thursday, June 10, 2021 6:16 AM EST

With the world reeling from the pandemic, President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain will aim to build on the World War II agreement that laid the foundation for the allies’ “special relationship.” It will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Mr. Biden took office.

Read the latest

More stuff about the coronavirus

News Alert Jan. 22, 12:44 p.m. EST

U.K. coronavirus variant may be more deadly as well as more contagious, prime minister says. It's already spreading globally. The variant, first identified in England, is known to be more highly contagious and has the potential to overwhelm health systems, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson is the first leader to say it "may be associated with a higher degree of mortality." Read more

UK

        New York Times

BREAKING NEWS

Prime Minister Boris Johnson closed schools and imposed a strict national lockdown in England, as a coronavirus variant continued to spread quickly.

Monday, January 4, 2021 3:09 PM EST

The decision comes as Britain’s desperate race to vaccinate its population risked being overtaken by the variant of the coronavirus that was on track to overwhelm the nation’s beleaguered hospitals.

Read the latest

New York Times - Some good news for the UK.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain signing the Brexit trade deal.

Brexit, finalized

More than four years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, new travel and trade rules will go into effect tomorrow, concluding a saga that has divided Britons and dominated British politics.

The two sides reached an agreement last week, after nearly a year of trade negotiations. Yesterday, Britain’s Parliament approved the deal. Tomorrow brings the end of free movement of people between Britain and the E.U.

I talked to Mark Landler, The Times’s London bureau chief, about what it all means and what comes next. (Our conversation has been edited for brevity.)

CLAIRE: How will the new relationship between Britain and the E.U. affect people’s everyday lives?

MARK: The purpose of the 1,200-page trade deal between Britain and the E.U. was to avoid very disruptive changes, such as tariffs and quotas. But there will be an array of other bureaucratic requirements that did not exist before Jan. 1.

People won’t see a sudden shift in the price of fresh fruit and vegetables in London supermarkets. But it’ll have an impact on Britons who, for example, want to bring their dog on vacation to the continent or who want to get a job somewhere in the E.U.

Trade. Travel. Anything else?

Britain withdrew from the Erasmus exchange program, which allowed British students to study in E.U. countries and vice versa. It’s one highly visible example of things that will change in the post-Brexit era.

Something else, which may take a little bit longer to play out, is this idea of separatism and independence. Scotland, for example, was against Brexit, and it could fuel a new push to break off from the rest of Britain.

What will this mean for Britain’s economy?

A lot of stuff still needs to be negotiated. A major driving force of the British economy is the services sector, including legal, financial, consulting and other services. Virtually none of that is covered yet in the trade agreement.

How did the pandemic affect the process?

Without it, the negotiations for the trade deal would have been the biggest story in the country. But Brexit was almost completely overshadowed by the coronavirus. Britain is preoccupied with this health crisis, which will muffle the immediate effects of Brexit. But over time those will become more visible. Which means that the debate over Brexit may not be finished in the country.

Will this deliver the “global Britain” that pro-Brexit campaigners hoped for?

One of the driving arguments in favor of Brexit was throwing off the shackles of the E.U., so that Britain would become this agile, dynamic, independent economy that could strike deals with everyone in the world. But rising protectionism and populism have made making free-trade agreements harder. The “global Britain” arguments looked more valid in May 2016 than in January 2021. In a way, the Brexit vision is four and a half years too late.

The UK is doing the right thing. We should have these fines in America but it won't happen thanks to Fucktard Trump.

BBC News

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the changes to the rules on face coverings in England last week when he also postponed the further easing of lockdown due to the spike in virus cases.

Those who break the law on wearing masks in England face fines of up to £100, with the PM saying there would be a "greater police presence" to ensure the rules were being followed.

"Boris Johnson Pledges to Admit 3 Million From Hong Kong to U.K." Well done UK. The United States should do the same thing.

New York Times - Boris Johnson Pledges to Admit 3 Million From Hong Kong to U.K.

The promise, in reaction to a new security law China is trying to impose on the semiautonomous city, a former British colony, would sharply raise the stakes in a developing standoff.

By Mark Landler

June 3, 2020

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson raised the stakes in a confrontation with China over Hong Kong on Wednesday, promising to allow nearly three million people eligible for a British overseas passport to live and work in Britain, if Beijing were to impose a new security law on the former British colony.

Mr. Johnson’s promise, made in a column in The Times of London, would open the door to a significant influx of people fleeing Hong Kong, should the situation in the city deteriorate further. But it left unanswered questions about how difficult it would be for those arrivals to obtain British citizenship.

Describing what he proposed as one of the biggest changes in Britain’s visa regime in history, Mr. Johnson said the 350,000 Hong Kong residents who hold British national overseas passports, as well as some 2.5 million who are eligible to apply for them, would be granted 12-month renewable visas that would put them on a path to citizenship.

“Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life — which China pledged to uphold — is under threat,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honor our obligations and provide an alternative.”

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief. In 27 years at The Times, he has been bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, European economic correspondent, and a business reporter in New York. @MarkLandler

Even the UK is infested with assholes for Jeebus. I never met a Christian who wasn't insane.

This is about Boris Johnson's excellent speech at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eManpacnu4k. A Christian bible-thumping fucktard complained about Mr. Johnson thanking the doctors and nurses but not thanking the Magic Man. Christians are the most stupid fucking assholes on this planet.

Glory to God! BUT I am very disappointed you never acknowledged God in your speech but rather secondary elements. IT WAS NEVER YOUR NHS PLEASE. My brethren and I raised prayer points passionately for you that you come back strong again by the healing power of God. Please kindly say at least, " I Thank God ", in your speech next time. Jesus Christ is THE way! (John 14:6)

A very grateful Prime Minister thanks everyone who saved his life.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is feeling much better these days and that's a good thing.

New York Post: British PM Boris Johnson able to walk again as coronavirus condition improves

The Washington Post

Europe

Love him or hate him, Britons want Boris Johnson home from the hospital

By William Booth, Karla Adam, and Christine Spolar

April 10, 2020

LONDON — He's 55, a little plump and likes cheese. He used to jog but had to give it up. The knees. The prime minister was never super fit, but he was vigorous — and he's now the best-known coronavirus patient in the world.

Just weeks ago, an exuberant, healthy Boris Johnson was rocking his world. Now he’s at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, out of the intensive care unit Thursday but still on oxygen support. The suddenness of it, the indiscriminate way he was felled, has stunned Britons.

Unseen in his hospital bed, Johnson dominates the news. He’s the absent leader at Britain’s darkest hour. He is the master orator, silenced.

And yet at this moment, the prime minister is somehow at his most human. He’s a middle-aged everyman bloke struggling to get out of the virus ward alive. And the people are pulling for him.

“How is Boris? For millions of people, that was our first thought upon waking yesterday. And our last thought before we fell asleep the night before. The prospect of losing our prime minister was profoundly shocking. ‘He won’t die, will he?’ a friend texted at 11:18 p.m. ‘My heart will break.’ ”

That was columnist Allison Pearson, writing this week in the Telegraph, the newspaper where Johnson once toiled as a hack, under the headline “We need you, Boris — your health is the health of the nation.”

The prime minister’s disappearance into the twilight of the ICU this week elicited sympathy even from among those who candidly say they can’t stand his Tory politics.

“I hate him. But I would be devastated if that clown died,” said Vicki Cullen, 40, who had stopped for a takeout coffee at London’s Exmouth Market. “I mean, two days ago, I found myself in tears talking to my family about it.”

Like few other British politicians, Johnson is intimately known to the public, thanks to the serial scandals and comebacks that make up the tabloid dramedy of his life.

But this episode is the worst by far.

Johnson and his 32-year-old fiancee, Carrie Symonds, were beaming in photographs as recently as the end of February, when they announced their engagement days after his divorce was settled — while the virus was already spreading in Britain after running rampant in China and Italy.

The two broke all protocol, all norms, when they moved into 10 Downing Street as an unwed couple after Johnson’s election.

Nobody complained. Rather, people applauded — or shrugged.

Two weeks ago, Symonds began to suffer from the same symptoms of the virus as her husband-to-be and hasn’t seen Johnson in days, as the two self-isolated.

Rachel Johnson, Boris’s sister, retweeted a picture of hospital staff wearing face masks and holding up letters that read: “Get Well Soon Boris.”

Stanley Johnson, Boris’s 79-year-old father, who is in self-isolation, told the Daily Mail, “I am not being told how Boris is getting on. But he is optimistic, determined and resilient.”

Guto Harri, Johnson’s communications director when he was mayor of London, said people feel as if they know Johnson personally. In addition to serving two terms as mayor, Johnson worked as a newspaper journalist, appeared on television shows and wrote books — including one about his hero Winston Churchill and a widely panned comic political novel titled “Seventy Two Virgins.”

His fans like him, Harri said, because Johnson comes across as authentic. He’s an Eton-educated politician who speaks fluent French, drops Latin into sentences and has had a colorful personal life (and been accused of groping journalists). But, Harri said, “ordinary people will relate to anyone as long as you’re not pretending to be someone you’re not.”

He added: “He’s flawed, he’s had affairs, his wife kicked him out, took him back, then he’s with a young woman who is pregnant. But there is very little resentment — for most human beings are flawed themselves. He’s not trying to portray himself as someone who is better than you.”

So when Johnson tested positive for coronavirus but posted videos that suggested he would soldier through, “he became a metaphor for how the country and economy will get through this, too,” Harri said. “But when he got it bad, the country thought, damn, it will hit us harder than we thought.”

Andrew Gimson, a political journalist who is a contemporary and biographer of Johnson’s, said, “Some people are surprised by how concerned they feel about him.”

He said, “It’s just a natural human thing; people feel for his pregnant fiancee and children and his whole rather complicated and extensive family. Human sympathy takes over from partisan sniping.”

Royal Post worker Tony Hudson said he has been tracking Johnson’s plight via TV and radio reports. Johnson’s old home is around the corner in Islington in north London, and Hudson said it felt as if a neighbor, as much as a leader, was in trouble.

“It shows you, it could affect anyone, couldn’t it?” said Hudson, who was waiting in a line — each person six feet from the next — outside a pharmacy. Hudson, 52, noted that he is about the same age as the prime minister but that his life amid the pandemic is much different.

Every day Hudson has to work, with mail and packages, without protective gear. “I wouldn’t say we are scared. But of course, we are worried,” he said. And a prime minister in the ICU, he said, “has made everyone think.”

Johnson’s early handling of the coronavirus crisis has been criticized. Britain was slower than most European nations to roll out strict stay-at-home measures. But few have questioned his work ethic. If anything, perhaps the prime minister was working too hard. Aides complained it might have undercut his immune response.

As the epidemic grew more serious, Johnson appeared to adapt his tone. He was no longer goofing around in his usual way. Instead, he was flanked by senior medical and scientific advisers at the daily 10 Downing Street news conference, where he encouraged them to weigh in on questions.

For most of Johnson’s political life, Gimson said, Johnson’s critics have maintained that he’s a “clown and not trustworthy, and they are very attached to that view.” But now, he said, “most fair-minded people recognize he’s not some mere buffoon but a person of considerable abilities, and everyone genuinely hopes he gets better.”

Politicians across the political spectrum have declared their support. Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, who has clashed with Johnson over the issue of Scottish independence, said that many, including herself, felt “really shaken” at the news of his ICU admission.

“We are all willing you on, Boris. Get well soon,” she said.

Johnson’s critics have not turned into fans. Some people on social media responded to the calls to #ClapForBoris on his second night in the ICU by posting videos showing scenes of complete silence from their windowsills.

“He isn’t the queen. He is still a politician,” said Ben Page, chief executive of the polling group Ipsos Mori. But he noted that just before Johnson went into the hospital, his personal ratings were up 16 percentage points from where they were before Christmas. “People rally around their leader in a crisis.”

That was also true of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female leader, who was very unpopular in the early 1980s, when there were waves of strikes across the country. But she saw a huge uptick in support after the 1982 Falklands War. In 1983, she won a landslide victory in the general election.

Johnson’s current approval rating is 52 percent — sky-high for Britain, where voters are known to elect and then immediately begin trashing their leaders.

I predicted Mr. Johnson would be OK and I was right thank goodness.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves ICU but remains in hospital. Downing Street said that the prime minister was in “good spirits” and in the “early phase of his recovery.”

Some good news

I suggest click this to see the video:

Boris Johnson’s condition is improving

Mr. Johnson should be OK in a few days. He probably has the best doctors in the UK.

The Washington Post

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, sick with covid-19, is moved to intensive care after his condition worsens

The British leader has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab "to deputize for him where necessary," according to a Downing Street statement.

April 5, 2020 - Boris Johnson in hospital

The Washington Post

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to the hospital because of “persistent” symptoms of the coronavirus, a spokesman confirmed Sunday. Johnson tested positive for the virus 10 days ago and has been self-isolating at his official residence.

At the UK there is some big fucking deal going on. Something to do with Boris Johnson winning an election. I think this is a good thing.

BBC News - Boris Johnson has said he hopes his party's "extraordinary" election win will bring "closure" to the Brexit debate and "let the healing begin".

Mr. Johnson's speech. Well done!

This American likes the new prime minister of the United Kingdom.

BBC News - What has Boris Johnson said about other countries and their leaders?

• 24 July 2019

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The UK has a new prime minister, and while Boris Johnson's biggest challenge is delivering Brexit, he will soon find plenty more on his agenda.

World leaders will be eagerly studying Mr Johnson's previous opinions and positions to try to decide how he might act as prime minister.

Luckily, his two years as foreign secretary, decades of newspaper and magazine columns, and a wealth of interviews will provide them with plenty of material.

US: Trump's 'many, many good qualities'

The special relationship just got more special. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are - if not best buddies, then keen admirers of one another.

It hasn't always been the case. In 2015, when Mr Trump was running for president, he falsely stated that parts of London were no-go areas. In response, Mr Johnson - then mayor of London - accused him of a "quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States".

It's a position Mr Johnson himself once joked he could run for, as he was born in New York.

Image copyrightAFP/GETTY IMAGES

Image captionExpect more of this

His tone since Mr Trump became president has been much warmer (for the most part) and last month Mr Johnson suggested Britain could learn a lot from the US president.

"Actually, he has many, many good qualities," Mr Johnson said. "This is a guy who, when all is said and done, has got the US economy motoring at about 3.6% growth." (In fact, it is currently 3.1%).

"He's cut regulation, cut taxes in a way that has driven growth. My point is that... we Conservatives have failed, for too long, to talk up the agenda of free market economics."

Mr Trump has said he thinks Mr Johnson will do an "excellent" job as prime minister. The friendly tone bodes well for any hopes Mr Johnson has of striking a post-Brexit trade deal with the US.

Turkey: Creative rhyming

We're now in a situation where the leader of one country - Mr Johnson - has written a rude award-winning poem about the leader of another - Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr Johnson's 2016 limerick - which included an obscene reference to a goat and a creative new word to rhyme with "Ankara" - won him £1,000. He and Mr Erdogan met months later, and the limerick was apparently not mentioned. Mr Johnson has also stated how much he likes his "very well-functioning Turkish washing machine".

• What's Boris Johnson's track record?

Mr Johnson once appeared to express concern at the prospect of Turkey and its 80 million citizens joining the European Union. Before the EU referendum in June 2016, he indicated - in a letter signed with two other pro-Brexit figures - that anyone who did not want Turkey in the EU should vote to leave the bloc. But he did not go as far as saying that Turkey should not join the EU.

Mr Johnson has family ties to Turkey - his great-grandfather Ali Kemal was a former Turkish minister of the interior, who was killed by a mob. Elders in Mr Johnson's ancestral region have already vowed to "sacrifice many sheep in Boris' honour".

Russia: 'Oligarchs and cronies'

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image caption"I made the classic, classic mistake of thinking it was possible to have a 'reset' with Russia"

Last month, Mr Johnson said too much power in Russia had been placed in the hands of "oligarchs and cronies" and that Vladimir Putin's recent comment that liberalism was dead was "tremendous tripe".

But might we see moves by Mr Johnson to forge closer ties with the Kremlin as prime minister? Once bitten, twice shy, perhaps. He was the first British foreign minister to visit Russia in five years, but said after leaving his role that he had been too naive about what he could achieve.

"When I became foreign secretary I thought there was no objective reason why we should be quite so hostile to Russia," he said.

"Yes, there were lots of reasons to be suspicious, lots of reasons to be wary. But I thought it was possible - I made the classic, classic mistake of thinking it was possible to have a 'reset' with Russia."

Papua New Guinea: 'Cannibalism and chief-killing'

"For 10 years," he wrote in a newspaper column in 2006, "we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing."

He said he was happy to "add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology", but has not yet visited.

"How far removed and ill-informed can Mr Johnson be from the reality of the situation in modern-day Papua New Guinea?" the country's high commissioner, Jean L Kekedo, said at the time.

India: 'Optimistic vision'

Mr Johnson has made all the right noises when it comes to charming a country with which it conducts more than $15bn ($18bn) of trade a year - a figure the UK hopes to increase after Brexit. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi won re-election in May, Mr Johnson was full of praise:

Image Copyright @BorisJohnson@BORISJOHNSON

Report

At a hustings in Bedfordshire last week, he indicated growing trade ties with India would be a priority. "Trade with China has gone up by about 45% in the last 10 years," the Hindustan Times reported him as saying. "In India, volumes have remained almost static. We need to do far more. India is a massive natural market for the UK."

DRC: 'Watermelon smiles'

Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2002, before then-PM Tony Blair visited Democratic Republic of Congo, Mr Johnson said: "No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."

His comments, criticised as racist, drew outrage, and he apologised when he ran for mayor of London six years later.

Iran: Only diplomacy will work

Apart from Brexit, tension over Iran is probably the most pressing diplomatic issue sitting in Mr Johnson's in-tray, as our diplomatic correspondent points out.

A deal signed with Iran to restrict its nuclear activity is teetering. The US has reimposed sanctions; Iran is enriching more and more uranium; and the UK is sending more warships to the Gulf amid fears Iran may seize its tankers.

• Can the Iran nuclear deal be saved?

The new prime minister does not back an aggressive confrontation, an option Mr Trump has not ruled out. "If you say that going to war with Iran now represents a sensible option for us in the West, I just don't believe it is," he said at a leadership debate last week. "Diplomacy must be the best way forward.

"If you were to ask me... if I were to be prime minister now, would I be supporting military action against Iran, then the answer is no."

But he has indicated he is ready to reimpose sanctions on Iran if it continues to enrich uranium at a rate not permitted under the nuclear deal.

Saudi Arabia: 'Twisting and abusing religion'

Whoever is in the role of British prime minister has to perform a delicate balancing act when it comes to Saudi Arabia. It is one of the UK's closest allies, or at least one of its most important arms buyers. But Saudi Arabia is also accused of rights abuses and of possibly committing war crimes in its war in Yemen.

So what has Mr Johnson said about Saudi Arabia? As foreign secretary, he accused it (and Iran) of fighting proxy wars across the region, adding that there was not strong enough leadership in those countries. "There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives," he said.

Media captionBoris Johnson: "You have these proxy wars being fought the whole time"

Downing Street then said that this was only his personal view, and did not represent the government's position. But he has also appeared happy to deal with Riyadh: emails that emerged last month, seen by the Guardian and the Independent, showed Mr Johnson was "content" to sell bomb parts to Saudi Arabia that were likely to be deployed in Yemen.

China: Respect Hong Kong

His comments after recent protests in Hong Kong echoed those of the British government. He said he backed "every inch of the way" demonstrators who were angry about a new extradition law that would have seen people in Hong Kong sent to China's mainland.

But he also emphasised how important it was for Beijing to respect the "one country, two systems" approach to Hong Kong that granted it a degree of autonomy from the mainland after it stopped being a British colony.

Any Boris fans in China may want to follow his Weibo account - but bear in mind it hasn't been updated since October 2013.

Related Topics

• Boris Johnson