Boris Johnson survives no-confidence vote: BBC News Review

Boris Johnson is still the British prime minister.  This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Sian, and  we are back in the studio.

So, Boris Johnson was and Boris Johnson still  is the British prime minister. What's going on?

I know it's confusing but stick with us.

Yes, and don't forget it's really  important to test yourself on the  

vocabulary you learn and there's a quiz  on our website at bbclearningenglish.com

OK. MPs from Boris Johnson's political party  have voted on whether he should resign.

About 60 per cent of Conservative  MPs voted for Johnson to stay,

meaning 40 per cent of his own  MPs have lost confidence in him.

The vote came after a report which  showed that lots of Covid lockdown  

rules were broken by officials  working with the prime minister.

Johnson himself was fined by the police.

You've been looking at the headlines  Sian. What's the vocabulary?

OK, so we have: 'Partygate',

'dead man walking' and 'draw a line under'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

So, now let's have a look at our first headline.

OK. This one's from Forbes: UK Prime Minister  Boris Johnson survives confidence vote after

Partygate scandal.

So, we're looking at 'Partygate'.  Now this is a word that exists  

just for this situation - it  was invented for this story.

Yeah, but there's a formula, isn't there?

There is, yes, and it goes back to the 1970s,

in America, a political scandal -  the president resigned -

it was called Watergate.

And for some reason the word 'gate' has  become a suffix which we add to say that  

there's a scandal about something. So,  Partygate is a scandal about a party.

Yeah, that's right, and have you got  another example? There are plenty.

So, recently, Will Smith slapped  Chris Rock at the Oscars,  

and that became known as 'Slapgate'.  Absolutely. OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This one's from the Huffington Post: Analysis:  Boris Johnson is now a dead man walking.

So, we're looking at 'dead man  walking'. That's a strange expression.

It is, but we're not talking literally here. The  writer of this article thinks that Boris Johnson

doesn't have a political future. He thinks  he's going to lose his job - not die.

So this expression is about  people's futures, isn't it?

That's right, and it's from prison language  originally. A person waiting to be executed,  

to be killed for the crime they committed, was  said to be a dead man walking. Not literally here.

Can you tell us how we use it? So nowadays  you could say, for example: A football manager  

whose team has been losing over and over again.  One more game or one more defeat, and they will be  

fired. And that manager is a dead man walking.  OK, let's have a look at that one more time.

Let's have a look at our next headline,  please. This one's from the BBC:

Time to draw a line under Partygate,  Boris Johnson tells cabinet.

Well, there's that word 'Partygate' again  but here we are looking at the expression

'draw a line under' which means  that something has finished -

it's time to stop thinking about it.

Yes exactly so Boris Johnson has decided  Partygate is over, it's finished,

and people should stop talking about it  although others may disagree with him.

Yeah. OK, so Sian, I used to argue  with my kids every night about bedtime,

and I decided just to stop, and to move on  from it. Can I say I drew a line under it?

Not really, Neil, because  

we use this more for official, it's  more official language - more formal.

So in the context of work  or politicians use it a lot.

Here you could say we've decided to move  on, we've got, let's get over it instead.

OK, let's have a look at that again.

So we had 'Partygate' - any scandal  just add 'gate' to the end.

'Dead man walking' describes a person  whose current situation is going to end.

And 'draw a line under something':  Stop talking about it - move on.

But before you move on don't forget  there's a quiz on our website and app,

so go to bbclearningenglish.com.

Thanks for joining us, and goodbye.

Goodbye.