UK / Beginning of a midlife crisis led me into politics: UK PM Johnson

London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he entered politics after suffering the “beginnings of a midlife crisis” in his mid thirties.

The Prime Minister, now aged 56, said he had chosen to pursue a career as an MP because he wanted to “contribute more”.

"When I was about 35-years-old - long away for you, you don't have to worry about this, it's a long time away - I had the beginnings of a midlife crisis and I knew I had to do something. I thought I had to sort of start to contribute more, and so I went into politics in the end, as well as writing, and it's just followed on from there. There are various things that I want... there were lots of things that I wanted to do and so the thing you want to do now is, I think that the UK is the greatest place in the world. I think it's the greatest place in the world. It's the greatest place to be, it's the greatest place place to grow up, greatest place to raise a family and have a job. But we don't think - I don't think - that opportunity is the same in the whole of the UK. I think that opportunity... I think that talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn't, necessarily. So I think our job is to try to spread it. That what we'll do - that's the plan," said Boris Johnson.

Talking about the lockdown in UK, he said that his government would stick to its "cautious" yet "irreversible" plan to end England's coronavirus lockdown, but would not be drawn on whether it could end sooner than the current target of June 21.

Johnson unveiled a four stage plan to gradually ease lockdown on Monday (February 22), with the first part coming into effect on March 8 as children return to schools around the country.

During a visit to a school in northwest England, the 56-year-old was also coy on developments in Scotland, where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon faces accusations of breaching the ministerial code.

While speaking to children in the school's cafeteria, Johnson mentioned how a "midlife crisis" in his mid-thirties spurred him to enter the political arena in order to "contribute more."

Before entering parliament in 2001 Johnson had worked as a fulltime journalist.

He has displayed a colourful, sometimes combative, speaking and writing style both as a journalist and as a politician, a trait which has fuelled many controversies during his three decades in the public eye.