Boris Johnson announced he would resign as Prime Minister in a statement to Downing Street on Thursday.
After facing a cabinet mutiny on an unprecedented scale, he said it was “clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party to have a new leader”.
During his statement, Mr Johnson raised eyebrows when he used the oddly informal phrase “they’re the holidays” to describe the circumstances of his departure – here’s what it actually meant.
What does “they’re the holidays” really mean?
The prime minister delivered the idiosyncratic line in the final stages of his resignation speech, saying: “I know there will be a lot of people who will be relieved and maybe quite a few people who will be disappointed too.
“And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world, but those are the breaks.”
The idiom, which is unusually grammatically untenable for an Eton-educated statesman, comes from America (as does Mr. Johnson, by the way).
It basically means ‘that’s the way things are’ or ‘that’s life’, similar to the saying ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles’.
Boris Johnson addressed the nation, media and MPs outside Downing Street on Thursday (Image: Getty Images)
According to the website Grammarist.com, the origin of the phrase lies in the “smashing” of the balls that begins a game of billiards or billiards.
He explains: “The result of this break cannot be changed and the players have to make do with what they are given.”
In the context of Mr Johnson’s speech, it was a follow-up to him blaming his departure on the “herd instinct” of Westminster’s “Darwinian system” which ensures that “no one is remotely dispensable”.
The Prime Minister said he had tried to explain to his colleagues that “it would be eccentric to change governments when we give so much” but regretted that he was not “successful in those arguments”.
More about Boris Johnson
What else did Boris Johnson say?
The harsh words for his colleagues were typical of a markedly upbeat speech in which Mr Johnson outlined his intention to stay on as prime minister until the autumn, despite senior Tories urging him to appoint an acting caretaker instead.
Speaking directly to the public from Downing Street, as Theresa May did in 2019, he was flanked by his No 10 staff, his wife Carrie Johnson and their youngest child, nine-month-old Romy, and long-time allies such as Nadine Dorris and Jacob Rees – Mog.
He said: “Thank you for this incredible mandate, the biggest Conservative majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979.
“The reason I fought so hard the last few days … was not just because I wanted to, but because I felt it was my job, my duty, my obligation to you to continue to do what we promised in 2019.”
He added that he was “extremely proud of the achievements of this government” and went on to list Brexit, the launch of a vaccine and the rapid response to the war in Ukraine.
Mr Johnson ended his speech by thanking his wife and children for their support and expressing his gratitude to the British public for the “enormous privilege you have given me”.
The Prime Minister concluded his address by saying: “Even if things look bleak now, our future together is golden.”
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