Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson Speaks to HPU Students

HIGH POINT, N.C., Feb. 7, 2025 – High Point University President Nido Qubein gave 1,000 community members and students the opportunity to learn Life Skills from a world leader when he sat down for an in-depth conversation with former United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Feb. 6.

Qubein and Johnson spoke for more than an hour on stage inside the Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena and Conference Center. They covered topics ranging from Johnson’s childhood and the traits needed to be a good leader to some of the more difficult issues he faced as Prime Minister, including the coronavirus pandemic and the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union known as Brexit.

Johnson told the audience that he admired “the freedom” and “the sense of hope and opportunity” that Americans have and wished more people were so optimistic. He then addressed the students in the room and offered an important lesson that he learned during his time in politics.

“People don’t have time to form a judgment about you other than the judgment that you seem to have of yourself,” Johnson said.

Johnson served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leader of the Conservative Party, Foreign Secretary and Mayor of London. In 2019, he led the Conservative Party to an extraordinary election victory, winning their biggest majority in the House of Commons since 1987 and the highest share of the vote of any party since 1979. The result was a major realignment in British politics.

Johnson said he loved all the political offices he held but admitted serving as Mayor of London didn’t properly prepare him to someday become Prime Minister. As mayor, he was in charge and didn’t need to necessarily answer to anyone, which he found wasn’t the case when he was appointed Prime Minister in 2019.

“The crucial thing is you serve not just at the pleasure of the people but at the pleasure of your back benches,” Johnson said. “I think to be a really effective Prime Minister you have to be a real child of the House of Commons, as Churchill said. You’ve got to sit back, you’ve got to know all the back benches, and you’ve got to be very, very alert of what’s happening.”

Johnson said one of the perks of being Prime Minister was that he met every week with the late Queen Elizabeth II for at least an hour. He described her as a brilliant woman and a dear confidant who would listen to him talk without trying to influence his political views. Their conversations often ran long.

Queen Elizabeth, the United Kingdom’s longest-serving monarch, passed away on Sept. 8, 2022, at age 96.

“She was brilliant. She knew everybody. She had known every American President since Eisenhower, Eisenhower to Trump,” Johnson said. “She knew all of them, and she had stories about them. She had a great gift of making you feel that she was on your side and trying to do the right thing, and she was very, very encouraging. I always came out of the meetings feeling soothed. I saw her two days before she died, and she was still absolutely brilliant.”

In addition to his work in politics, Johnson is an award-winning journalist, writer and editor. He is the author of almost a dozen books, from a globally bestselling historical biography of Winston Churchill to a self-illustrated children’s book.

Johnson said he has stayed busy since resigning as Prime Minister in 2023. He intends to write more books, including one that has been in the works for a while about Shakespeare. He also joked that he is “blissfully” trying to renovate his “wife’s kitchen” and raise their three children, all under age 5.