Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s famous supporters - and critics

Boris Johnson has made his first speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street after winning the hearts of Tory grass-roots members.

Theresa May’s replacement picked up 66% of the vote in the Tory leadership contest, with rival Jeremy Hunt trailing behind on 34%. But, as the New Statesman points out, that support base for Johnson represents just 0.13% of the population.

“It is hard to think of any recent prime minister about whom public opinion was so divided on their first day in power,” says the Financial Times.

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Today he insisted he would deliver Brexit by 31 October “no ifs or buts”.

“I am standing before you today, to tell you the British people, that those critics are wrong - the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters are going to get it wrong again,” he said, adding “I have every confidence that in 99 days time we will have cracked it.”

So is the new PM a gaffe-prone buffoon or a calculating joker? A grotesque xenophobe or a straight-talking patriot? As UK politics enters the “Johnson Era”, here are some of his most famous supporters and critics.

Supporters

Donald Trump

The US president has predicted that his UK counterpart will do “a great job” as PM and that they will have “a very good relationship”.

Welcoming Johnson’s victory in the Tory leadership battle, Trump said: “He’s tough and he’s smart. They’re saying, ‘Britain’s Trump’. They call him ‘Britain’s Trump’ and people are saying that’s a good thing.”

Matteo Salvini

The far-right Italian deputy PM and League Party leader has voiced his support for the UK’s new leader after Tony Blair this week branded Johnson’s populism “worse than that of Trump or Salvini”. Salvini tweeted: “The fact that from the left they’re painting him as ‘more dangerous than the League’ makes him all the more likeable to me.”

“All the best in your job Boris Johnson,” he added.

Tim Montgomerie

Conservative writer and former Times comment editor Tim Montgomerie is one of the most ardent supporters of Johnson, writing in The Daily Telegraph this week that there is “no one in politics is better equipped” to deliver Brexit.

“Only a brashly optimistic PM can make our belittled country great again,” says Montgomerie, before comparing Johnson to former US president Ronald Reagan, who “became his country’s most popular post-war leader with a ‘morning in America’ optimism that ordinary Americans loved”.

“Boris can be Britain’s Reagan and, despite what Britain’s best thinkers said throughout the 1980s and since, that is a very good thing,” he adds.

Arlene Foster

According to the Belfast Telegraph, every politician from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has been propping up the Conservatives in Parliament, “likes Johnson personally and speaks affectionately of him”.

“That the DUP enjoys Boris is unsurprising,” the newspaper says. “A party founded and led by the Rev Ian Paisley for 40 years has a soft spot for a showman.”

Demonstrating her fondness for Johnson, DUP leader Arlene Foster has said she is “looking forward” to discussing their “shared objectives of strengthening the union, delivering Brexit and restoring devolution”.

Alexander Temerko

Russian industrialist Alexander Temerko, who “forged close ties with the Russian Defence Ministry and security services in the 1990s”, has gifted more than £1m to the Conservatives over the past eight years, reports Reuters.

The news agency reports that in a recent interview, the influential tycoon spoke warmly about Johnson as his “friend” and applauded his bid to lead Britain out of the EU in a “revolution against bureaucracy”.

Temerko also revealed that he and the new PM sometimes call each other “Sasha”, the Russian diminutive for Alexander (Johnson’s real first name), and that during the British politician’s tenure as foreign secretary, they would “plot” late into the evening over a bottle of wine.

Critics

Max Hastings

The former editor of The Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard was once Johnson’s boss and appears to have been unimpressed by his former employee. In an article for The Guardian, Hastings has warned that Johnson is “utterly unfit to be prime minister”, adding: “Almost the only people who think Johnson a nice guy are those who do not know him.”

Stormzy

Hip-hop artist Stormzy pulls no punches about his views on the new PM. The London-based musician’s No.1 track Vossi Bop - released earlier this year and performed during Stormzy’s headline show at Glastonbury - contains the lyrics “f*** the government and f*** Boris”, as The Guardian notes.

James O’Brien

One of the most outspoken critics of the former foreign secretary, LBC radio presenter O’Brien routinely launches into lengthy tirades questioning Johnson’s character and integrity.

In a rant on LBC last week, O'Brien claimed that “because he will be prime minister, he will be the twentieth name to appear on the mahogany honours board at Eton College, and that is all he has cared about since he was 13”.

The radio host added: “He doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about your children, he doesn’t care about your job, or your income, or your rent or your mortgage, or your health, or your diet, or your access to medical supplies. He doesn’t care about any of us.”

John Oliver

“Entitlement from an early age, a kind of deep, deep, white-hot ambition pulsing through his life, no real principles to name of any kind.”

This was the take on Johnson of John Oliver, host of the hugely popular satirical HBO show Last Week Tonight, on a recent episode of US chat show The Late Show with Steven Colbert.

When asked whether he believed Johnson would rule in a similar fashion to Trump, Oliver said: “Superficially, they are similar... the end result is the same. What do you want to eat for dinner? A bowl of s*** or a bowl of screws? They’re both awful and will hurt you in different ways.”

Thom Yorke

Speaking to Zane Lowe for a BBC Radio 1 interview in June, the Radiohead frontman said that the “reason we can watch Boris Johnson lie through his teeth, promise something that we know will never happen, is we don’t have to connect with it directly because it’s a little avatar. It’s this little guy with a stupid haircut waving a flag… ‘That’s all right, that’s funny’.”