Learning English

Boris Johnson survives no-confidence vote

Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson has survived a no-confidence vote by his own MPs (Members of Parliament).

Neil and Sian look at the vocabulary used in the headlines about this story.

รับชมวิดีโอพร้อมทำแบบฝีกหัด

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The story 

MPs (Members of Parliament) from Boris Johnson's political party have voted on whether he should resign.

About 60% of Conservative MPs voted FOR Johnson to stay, meaning 40% of his own MPs have lost confidence in him.

The vote came after a report which showed lots of Covid lockdown rules were broken by officials working with the prime minister.

Johnson himself was fined by the police.

Key words and phrases

Partygate
the scandal around Covid lockdown parties in the British government

• Partygate threatens to end Johnson’s political career.
• MPs have been deciding whether to back the prime minister after the Partygate scandal.

dead man walking
describes a person whose current situation is going to end

• After ten defeats in a row, the football manager was a dead man walking.
• There’s no way the chief executive can survive this. He’s a dead man walking.

draw a line under
stop talking about something and move on

• The company wanted to draw a line under the financial scandal and move on.
• She tried to draw a line under the bribery accusation to keep her job.

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