Boris Johnson has stated that there will be no “psychological transformation” in his character following by-election failures that prompted calls for reform.

The Prime Minister was responding to Tory Party Chairman Oliver Dowden’s resignation, which he said could not be “business as usual.”

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Johnson stated that he wished to serve a third term as prime minister and remain in office until the mid-2030s in order to minimise regional economic imbalances and make improvements to Britain’s legal and immigration systems.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today show that he accepts criticism “humbly and sincerely.”

However, he stated that he must discriminate between “criticism that really matters and criticism that doesn’t.”

The by-election losses in Wakefield, Tiverton, and Honiton on Friday come after the prime minister endured months of condemnation over parties in Downing Street during the lockdown, as well as surging inflation and a narrower-than-expected confidence vote from his own MPs.

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Johnson consistently stated at the Commonwealth heads of government summit in Rwanda that policy was more important than complaints about his behaviour.

Johnson stated that people were “fed up with hearing conversation about me” and preferred to focus on the cost of living, the economy, and “standing up to violence and aggression” in Ukraine.

The PM was confronted by presenter Mishal Husain, who pointed out that most of the criticism was directed at him personally and came from those who had worked with him.

His top policy aide Munira Murza, who slammed Johnson’s “scurrilous allegation” about Jimmy Savile and Sir Keir Starmer; former minister Jesse Norman, who alleged the PM “presided over a culture of casual law-breaking”; and ethical adviser Lord Geidt were among them.

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But Johnson defended, “As a leader, you have to try to distinguish between the criticism that really matters and the criticism that doesn’t.”

When asked if there was any issue on which he would consider resigning, he responded that if he had to leave Ukraine when it became too difficult or the prices were too high, he would.

He stated that “of course” he considered morals to be a component of leadership.

But Johnson was pressed on why he hadn’t quit after deceiving the House of Commons, breaching the law with the Covid fine, or losing the confidence vote with 41 percent of his MPs.

“Let’s look at this in a more cheery way, if that’s possible” he stated. “Actually, what’s happened is that I’ve got a renewed mandate from my colleagues, and I’m going to continue to deliver.”

The prime minister did not respond to a question concerning the UK’s top civil servant, Simon Case, casually discussing employment options for his wife, Carrie.

“The worst thing I could do is get into conversations about my family,” he added.