Rachel Johnson

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Person.png Rachel Johnson  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(journalist)
Rachel Johnson in 2014.jpg
Born3 September 1965
NationalityUK
Alma materWinsford First School, Ashdown House School, Bryanston School, European School of Brussels, New College (Oxford)
Parents • Stanley Johnson
• Charlotte Fawcett
Siblings • Boris Johnson
• Jo Johnson
• Julia Johnson
SpouseIvo Dawnay
PartyChange UK, Liberal Democrats (UK), Conservative Party (UK)
Relatives • Carrie Symonds
• Amelia Gentleman
• James Fawcett
• Edmund Fawcett
• Ali Kemal
• Elias Avery Lowe
• Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter

Rachel Sabiha Johnson is a British journalist, television presenter and author based in London. She is the sister of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and daughter of overpopulation advocate Stanley Johnson

In November 2021 she wrote of Ghislaine Maxwell, a central character in Jeffrey Epstein's sexual blackmailing operation:

It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell — 500 days and counting in solitary confinement. I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh. She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall — even though I wasn’t in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home. I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.[1]

Early life and education

Johnson is the daughter of former Conservative MEP Stanley Johnson and artist Charlotte Johnson Wahl (née Fawcett). She is the younger sister of Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip;[2][3] and the elder sister of Jo Johnson, former Conservative MP for Orpington.[2]

Journalism career

In 1989 she joined the staff of the Financial Times, becoming the first female graduate trainee at the paper, where she wrote about the economy.[4] She spent a year on secondment to the Foreign Office Policy Planning Staff in 1992–93. She moved to the BBC in 1994, but left to move to Washington DC as a columnist and freelancer in 1997.[4]

She has written weekly columns for The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Telegraph, the Evening Standard and other regular columns for Easy Living and She magazines, as well as the Financial Times.[4][5] She is a contributing editor of The Spectator and until 2009 was a weekly columnist on The Sunday Times and the Evening Standard, among other publications. She now writes a weekly column in The Mail on Sunday, a column for The Big Issue[6] and a column for The Oldie.

In April 2014 she was a judge in the BBC Woman's Hour power list 2014.[7][5] She sits on the boards of Bright Blue, the modernising Tory think-tank, and Intelligence Squared, the international debate forum. In March 2014 she appeared in Famous, Rich and Hungry on BBC1.[8] She is a panellist on Sky News' weekly debate show, The Pledge.

The Lady

In September 2009, Johnson became the ninth editor of The Lady, a weekly magazine established in 1885. Her first few months were the subject of a Channel 4 documentary entitled The Lady and the Revamp; this was nominated for a Grierson Award. She was replaced as editor by Matt Warren in January 2012. In March 2013 she presented an hour-long documentary for BBC Four entitled How to Be a Lady: An Elegant History.[9]


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References


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