Boris Johnson's resignation speech in numbers

It felt like the day would never come, but Boris Johnson has announced his plans to resign after a wave of resignations in Downing Street.

Johnson appeared outside Number 10 on Thursday and confirmed he was stepping back from the "best job in the world", acknowledging that there would be "many people who are relieved" as well as "perhaps quite a few who will be quite disappointed".

He also described the UK political system as “Darwinian”, while not actually giving a specific timeframe for his full resignation.

It marks the end of an era for British politics and the beginning of the end for one of the most controversial leaders in the country’s history..

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The speech itself lasted six and a half minutes, and there was a whole lot to analyse in that time.

These are the numbers involved in Johnson’s speech.

9 – the number of times he mentioned his own achievements

• “The biggest conservative majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979.”
• “Getting Brexit done.”
• “Settling our relations with the continent for over half a century.”
• “Reclaiming the power for this country to make its own laws in parliament.”
• “Getting us all through the pandemic.”
• “Delivering the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe.”
• “The fastest exit from lockdown.”
• “Leading the West in standing up to Putin's aggression in Ukraine.”
• “Pushing forward a vast programme of investment in infrastructure, in skills and technology.”

3 – the number of times he tried to blame others

• “I've tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we're delivering so much and when we have such a vast mandate and when we're actually only a handful of points behind in the polls.
• "Even in mid-term after quite a few months of pretty relentless sledging and when the economic scene is so difficult domestically and internationally…And I regret not to have been successful in those arguments and of course, it's painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself."
• "But as we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.”

3 – the number of times he mentioned Ukraine

• “...Leading the West in standing up to Putin's aggression in Ukraine."
• "And let me say now to the people of Ukraine that I know that we in the UK will continue to back your fight for freedom for as long as it takes.”
• "And at the same time, in this country, we have been pushing forward a vast programme of investment in infrastructure, in skills and technology, the biggest in a century."

0 – the number of times he actually mentioned the word “resignation”

Instead of actually declaring his resignation, he instead said: "It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister, and I've agreed with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of our backbench MPs, that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now and the timetable will be announced next week.”

0 – the number of times he apologised for partygate, or any of the countless scandals during his tenure

Yup.

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