The story of Boris Johnson's reign told through his visits to the North East

The history of Boris Johnson's premiership is already being written.

And it is probable the departing PM's stint in Number 10 will be forever remembered as one of extreme highs and extreme lows for the man and his party.

In few other regions were such political peaks and troughs as starkly on show as they were in the North East.

It seemed on Johnson's prime ministerial visits to the region he was either triumphantly celebrating an electoral victory or giving a shambolic speech about Peppa Pig.

Often he came amidst a political scandal - on one occasion he left having created one.

Here is the story of Boris Johnson's reign told through the lens of his relationship with the North East, the land at the centre of the levelling up promise he will no longer be tasked with delivering.

Laying the groundwork

It is a story that begins long before Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's long-held dream of becoming Prime Minister was realised.

But here we will start in 2015 as many good love affairs with the region do: with his first taste of Teesside parmo.

Johnson tucks into a parmo on Teesside while still Mayor of London. Credit: ITV Tyne Tees

He was then still Mayor of London drumming up Conservative support for the 2015 General Election.

It was not until the following year, when he became the figurehead of the Leave campaign, that he truly started to shape the region, helping to persuade a clear majority of people in the North East to vote for Brexit.

Besides stopping off at a North Yorkshire sausage maker in 2019, the next time Johnson made a significant political visit to the region... he was prime minister.

The seat winner

Johnson's intention to court the North East was clear from the very outset.

The term that was to become his mantra, 'level up', was first uttered in his very first speech on the day he became prime minister from outside Number 10. He used it twice.

  • Watch Boris Johnson's first speech as Prime Minister

"My job is to make sure your kids get a superb education wherever they are in the country and that’s why we have already announced that we are going to level up per pupil funding in primary and secondary schools," he said, later adding:

"[I will be] Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom and that means uniting our country answering at last the plea of the forgotten people and the left behind towns...

"We unleash the productive power not just of London and the South East but of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."

His later-found unlawful tactic of advising the Queen to prorogue Parliament before the country's scheduled departure from the EU may have caused protest in Newcastle, but it also formed part of an image that proved broadly popular across the Leave-backing region - that he was the man to get Brexit done.

Johnson hails Brexit mandate as Tories make major gains into Labour heartlands

Popular to the extent that come the December 2019 General Election, the Red Wall cracked and fell. Boris Johnson helped achieve what many previously thought impossible, turning seven seats in the North East blue.

Johnson chairing a cabinet meeting at the University of Sunderland, the city first to back Brexit when results were announced. Credit: PA

On the day Britain departed from the EU, cabinet sat in Sunderland - a symbolic high point in the North East-Boris Johnson relationship.

From giant balloons to technology unicorns

And the electoral success continued.

In a May 2021 by-election Hartlepool left Labour hands for the first time since 1964 and Johnson celebrated in front of a 30-foot model of himself.

Inflatable Boris Johnson erected by Hartlepool business group

The Government hailed the result a vindication of their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, or at least the vaccine rollout. The PM likely breathed a sigh of relief that the controversy over advisor Dominic Cummings' lockdown trip to Barnard Castle in County Durham may not have damaged his reputation long term in the region.

But then the scandals began to come in thick and fast, one from an unlikely place.

While on a visit to Northumberland, amid a sleaze scandal, Johnson was videoed not wearing a mask despite hospital bosses claiming they "formally advised and reminded" him to do so.

  • Johnson met masked nurses at the hospital, talking to them and bumping elbows with them, despite not having his face covered.

The incident foreshadowed Partygate, the scandal which came to dominate the final six months of his tenure.

Soon after his trip to Hexham, he gave a widely ridiculed speech at the annual Confederation of British Industry in South Shields. The visibly flustered PM made car noises, spoke of technology "unicorns" and asked the audience if they had ever been to Peppa Pig World.

His last visit to the region came in May, following the publication of senior civil servant Sue Gray's report into the parties in Number 10, the Prime Minister visited Stockton and vowed to keep going.

Six weeks, a fresh scandal, and 52 Tory MP government resignations later, it became clear that keeping going was no longer possible. Boris Johnson resigned, bringing his topsy-turvy tenure to an end.