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%. 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. After initially stating he would not, he voted in support of the government's plans to join the US 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".
Johnson won a scholarship to read Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in the study of the Classics, ancient literature and classical 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 all went on to become senior Conservative Party politicians. To his later regret, he joined the Old Etonian-dominated 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 was the cause of much negative press coverage. He entered into a relationship with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, a glamorous and popular fellow student from his own social background; they became engaged while at university.
More InfoJohnson was educated at 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 a political columnist for The Daily Telegraph, where his articles exerted a strong Eurosceptic influence on the British right. He was the editor of The Spectator magazine from 1999 to 2005. After being elected MP for Henley in 2001, Johnson served as a junior Shadow Minister under Conservative leaders Michael Howard and David Cameron. In 2008, he was elected Mayor of London and resigned from the House of Commons; he was re-elected as Mayor in 2012. During his mayoralty, Johnson oversaw the 2012 Summer Olympics, introduced the New Routemaster buses, a cycle hire scheme and the Thames cable car, and banned alcohol consumption on much of London's public transport.
More InfoEight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri were the first ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe. As of 2017, the United States has won 2,522 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 305 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most behind Norway.While most major U.S. sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, some of which have become popular worldwide. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. The most watched individual sports are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR.
More InfoScandal 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.
More InfoJohnson was born on 19 June 1964 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to 23-year-old Stanley Johnson, an Englishman, then studying economics at Columbia University, and his 22-year-old wife of one year Charlotte Fawcett, an Oxford-born artist from a family of liberal intellectuals, and a daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a barrister. Boris's parents had married in 1963 before moving to the US, where they lived opposite the Chelsea Hotel. In September 1964, they returned to England, 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 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, D.C., where Stanley had gained employment with the World Bank. A third child, Leo, was born in September 1967. Stanley then gained employment with a policy panel on population control, and in June moved the family to Norwalk, Connecticut.
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