Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom's former foreign secretary, an active participant of the Brexit campaign, eccentric and populist, is moving steadily forward toward winning the Conservative leadership contest and replacing Theresa May as prime minister and party leader
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd July, 2019) Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom's former foreign secretary, an active participant of the Brexit campaign, eccentric and populist, is moving steadily forward toward winning the Conservative leadership contest and replacing Theresa May as prime minister and party leader.The reason for his success lies in the fact that the country saw the new image of Johnson: neatly dressed, skinnier and with a new haircut. Johnson was "upgraded" by his current girlfriend, 31-year-old Carrie Symonds, who is 23 years younger than the politician.
Johnson has been in a relationship with Symonds for about one and a half years, and this love story brought an end to Johnson's 25-year marriage with Marina Wheeler. The beginning of the divorce procedure was announced in September, after which the former foreign secretary moved to his girlfriend's apartment in Camberwell, south London. The couple currently lives there and occasionally spends time at Johnson's Oxfordshire house. At the same time, Johnson said he was ready to marry Symonds after his divorce with Wheeler was finalized.
The couple's mutual friends point out their affection for each other and Symonds' serious influence on Johnson.
"He was a notorious man about town. Now he's very keen to get home to Carrie at the end of the day," one of the couple's friends told media.
The friend also noted that Symonds was "very energetic and health conscious."
"She's a millennial basically, and terribly into wellness and fitness. Boris's transformation is undoubtedly down to her," the couple's friend concluded.
Johnson himself does not refute such statements. Moreover, he willingly told reporters that he loved painting with Symonds, and the couple decorated their apartment with these paintings. He also admitted that he had recently found himself a hobby: he builds buses from wooden boxes that used to contain wine bottles, paints them and then even draws passengers in the windows.
The first thing Johnson had to give up was overeating. He was known as a big eater and did not watch what he ate. He also confessed that he used to eat cheese and Spanish pork sausage chorizo in the evenings before bedtime. For breakfast, Johnson could eat a plate of cold spaghetti with meat that was left over from yesterday's dinner.
In 2008, he even criticized the United Nations, which urged people to reduce meat consumption in order to decrease environmental damage in the future.
"If they seriously believe that I am going to give up eating meat - in the hope of reducing the temperature of the planet - then they must be totally barmy," he wrote then.
Now he lives with a woman who participated in environmental campaigns and fought for animal rights.
"Carrie has shown him that a healthy diet means he has more energy and more focus. He has been struck dumb by the improvement. He isn't as tired or grumpy and gets much more done," one of the couple's friends told the Daily Mail newspaper.
Under the influence of his girlfriend, Johnson even tried to become a vegan, but he lasted only three days on such a diet and admitted that he could not imagine his life without cheese.
When Johnson met Symonds, he was diagnosed with obesity. After his girlfriend persuaded him to give up unhealthy foods and eat less meat, eggs and dairy products, the former foreign secretary lost almost 12 Pounds in two weeks.
The second pillar on which "Boris 2.0" stands is abstinence from drinking. Johnson never hid his weakness for alcohol.
"I do drink quite a lot of wine and champagne, at least a bottle a day," he wrote in 2005.
According to Johnson's friends, he had to quit drinking after he met Symonds. They also said that the ex-secretary did not suffer from the absence of alcohol, and even, on the contrary, he was glad and had found out that he got more done when he was sober.
"He used to be the sort who could easily down a bottle of wine by himself at dinner after a drink at the bar. But after giving up for three months completely, he no longer 'does a bottle' and just sticks to a single glass," one of his friends said.
Along with the candidate, some of his advisers have given up drinking too, and this may indicate that Johnson's team is taking seriously his potential election as the Conservative Party leader and intends to achieve the premiership for its leader.
Everyone noted Johnson's changed appearance: the politician clearly looks younger, his skin looks healthier, and his cheeks look less ruddy. Some people say that the candidate started cosmetic treatments, but it was impossible to verify.
According to a close acquaintance of the couple, Johnson, at the encouragement of his girlfriend, changed his approach to sports. If earlier he tried to run, then now he gave up running because, as it turned out, that type of activity was not really working for him. He is currently working out with his girlfriend and, possibly, a trainer, at home.
Johnson was known as a keen cyclist, but he stopped cycling for security reasons right after he became a foreign secretary in 2016.
The potential prime minister also splurged on suits. Previously, even while he was a foreign secretary, Johnson was famous for his sloppy appearance: during the events, he was often seen in wrinkled baggy clothes, with his shirt pulled out of his trousers. Now his body allows Johnson to wear more elegant well-tailored suits. People say that Symonds personally chooses business clothes for him. She also told him to get a new haircut.
The politician, who was often called "mop-haired," went to get a new haircut to a small barber shop in his Uxbridge constituency last November. A barber with 30 years of experience cut Johnson's hair in front of journalists and shocked employees of neighboring shops. The haircut cost 15 pounds sterling (nearly $19), but the politician could not pay for the haircut himself, as his wallet was empty. Luckily, the accompanying advisers came to his rescue.
Representatives of political parties interviewed by Sputnik noticed radical changes in Johnson's image, but not everyone thinks that this will change him as a person and guarantee the prime minister's post.
One of the Labour party members said he used to give an unsanitary and sloppy impression of someone you would not want to shake hands with. The Labour member added that changes in appearance are no guarantee of a win in party elections and expressed doubts about the real extent of Johnson's change.
A member of the Conservative Party, on the other hand, welcomed Johnson's sacrifices, but said that the main reason was likely political rather than personal. The Conservative member then admitted that in the upcoming elections he would vote for Johnson's rival, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt.
All investments in the "upgrade" of the politician were almost ruined by the actions of the couple's neighbors. Late in the evening of June 20, Johnson and Symonds argued loudly about something in their apartment and, as witnesses said, used bad language. One of the neighbors recorded the quarrel and called the police. Patrol unit that arrived interviewed everyone in the house and concluded that there was no incident.
The neighbor gave the recording to The Guardian newspaper in the morning, after which there was a media scandal. Johnson himself refused to answer questions about what happened, and the police issued a special statement that nothing criminal had happened in the house that evening. But the Survation research agency conducted an opinion poll on June 23, which showed that Johnson was losing his popularity, and the gap between him and Hunt decreased from 27 percentage points to 11 percent percentage points.
Experts considered that Johnson's mistake was that he refused to comment on what had happened. They also said that his rating was dropping because he more than once refused to participate in debates with Hunt.
However, according to a later YouGov poll, most UK citizens are confident that the police scandal does not affect Johnson's ability to serve as prime minister.
