Boris Johnson resignation: Did the outgoing prime minister meet his pledges?

In the run-up to his resignation and as pressure grew, Boris Johnson repeatedly stated that he wanted "to get on with the mission on which this government was elected".

Mr Johnson became prime minister and won a landslide victory in 2019 and has made a series of pledges to voters. Delivering on them was made harder by the Covid pandemic, but how did he get on?

The Conservatives promised this for England by March 2025.

Latest figures show 321,624 full-time equivalent NHS nurses and health visitors in March 2022. That is up 24,901 since December 2019, leaving 25,099 posts to fill in the next three years.

If you exclude locums (doctors who temporarily fill a rota gap) and trainees, GP numbers have fallen by 1,397 since December 2019.

By either measure, an increase of 6,000 is a long way off.

This 2019 pledge was to be met "over the next 10 years".

In August 2021, the government came up with several definitions for what it said constituted a "new" hospital:

When asked for an update, on 7 June 2022, a Department of Health spokesperson told us that one of the 40 hospitals "opened for patients last year and a further six are in construction".

The Conservatives promised this for England and Wales by March 2023.

Latest figures, up to 31 March 2022, show an extra 13,576 police officers recruited. That means the government is two-thirds of the way there with one year to go.

This manifesto pledge was to be met by "the mid-2020s".

In 2019-20, there were 242,700 net additional dwellings, which fell to 216,490 in 2020-21.

Net additional dwellings includes houses converted to flats, commercial buildings switching to domestic use, as well as new builds. It also factors in demolished houses.

The prime minister was asked about the pledge on 9 June 2022 and said: "I can't give you a cast iron guarantee that we're going to get to a number in a particular year."

This was achieved in a literal sense as the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.

Britain departed from the EU's single market and customs union 11 months later, after agreeing a basic free trade deal with the EU.

But if this election slogan implied Brexit would be done and dusted, this has clearly not happened. A huge amount remains unresolved, from Northern Ireland to financial services.

A large number of trade deals have been signed around the world (most to replace the ones the UK already had as an EU member) but a deal with the US hasn't happened.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which makes economic judgements for the government, predicts that leaving the EU will reduce the UK's imports and exports by about 15% in the long term, with about a 4% hit to productivity.

Supporters of Brexit say sovereignty has been restored, and unwanted regulations can now be cut.

This was not possible while the UK was in the EU because of rules giving citizens the freedom to live and work in all EU countries.

After Brexit, the government did launch this system. EU citizens wishing to live and work in the UK now have to apply for a visa via a points-based system (PBS), the same as citizens from the rest of the world.

This manifesto pledge was broken.

In September 2021, the government announced that workers, the self-employed and employers would pay 1.25p more National Insurance (NI) in the pound from April 2022.

But, because of cost of living pressures, the government later reduced the impact of this by announcing that from 6 July 2022 the point at which employees would start paying NI would increase to £12,570.

This means that in the 12 months from April 2022, anyone earning less than about £34,000 will pay less NI than they did last year. Anybody earning more than that will pay more.

The government says the money from the NI rise will go initially towards easing pressure on the NHS.

A proportion will then be moved into the social care system - which Mr Johnson pledged, in 2019, to "fix".

In 2021, the government unveiled its plan to cap the costs that people in England pay for social care. From October 2023, this will be set at a maximum of £86,000 for care during their lifetime.

But the long-awaited reform of funding does not fix other problems such as the shortage of care workers. Research in May 2022 estimated that 500,000 adults in England were waiting for social care, up from 294,000 a year ago.

The triple lock means the state pension increases each year at whichever of these is highest:

The 2019 Conservative manifesto said it would stay for the duration of this Parliament.

The government says it will return in April 2023.

This manifesto pledge has also been broken.

The UK's annual aid budget has been reduced to 0.5% of GNI (gross national income) - a cut of about £4bn.

Again, the government blamed the pandemic - saying cutting aid spending would help restore the public finances.

It said the 2015 legislation, which introduced the 0.7% target, referred to "fiscal circumstances" which governments may refer to, if they fail to meet it.

As well as pledges, Boris Johnson has made claims about his government's record during the pandemic.

The UK was the first country to approve a Covid vaccine - on 2 December 2020. Its vaccine rollout began on 8 December 2020 - weeks before the EU's.

The UK vaccine programme was the fastest in the EU until May 2021.

After that, other EU countries caught up if you look at doses per 100 people in a country's population.

The prime minister has repeatedly talked about the UK having the fastest-growing economy in the G7, which is a club of major, developed economies.

Whether this is true depends on which period you are looking at.

Update: This piece was first published on 4 October 2021 and has been updated several times since then to add pledges and update figures.