In an age dominated by drab, cliché-spouting politicians, Boris Johnson’s brilliantly vivid memoir, serialised in the Mail from today, provides a much-needed tonic.
With his wry, often waspish humour and supreme command of the English language, he reminds us of brighter, optimistic days.
What a contrast there has been between the wave of positivity and good will that swept the country after his 2019 landslide and the gloomy foreboding that followed Sir Keir Starmer’s loveless victory.
It is a tragedy that the pandemic struck before Mr Johnson could get into his stride as PM. When that was over, we were hit with a major European war and energy crisis. And Sir Keir thinks he has problems!
This candid and vibrant testament reveals how perilously close Boris came to dying from the virus. He recounts being in intensive care, ‘physically broken’ and afraid to go to sleep ‘in case I never woke up’.
Boris Johnson’s brilliantly vivid memoir, serialised in the Mail from today, provides a much-needed tonic, in an age dominated by drab
Boris Johnson clapping for carers outside Downing Street in April 2020. What a contrast there has been between the wave of positivity and good will that swept the country after his landslide, and the gloomy foreboding that followed Starmer’s
Among Mr Johnson’s references to Sir Keir in his memoir is ‘his puzzled/irritable face like a bullock unexpectedly having a thermometer shoved in its rectum’
He describes his elation (‘kerchingeroo’) at the success of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out, which would have been impossible without Brexit because of Brussels regulation.
When the EU impounded five million doses in a Dutch warehouse, he tells how he commissioned a plan for a Special Forces ‘invasion’ of Holland to liberate them (later realising the idea was ‘nuts’).
There are disobliging references to Sir Keir, ‘his puzzled/irritable face like a bullock unexpectedly having a thermometer shoved in its rectum’, Michael Gove, Emmanuel Macron and others.
But at no stage does he descend into self-pity. He admits ‘catastrophic mistakes’ in failing to address Partygate sooner and more fully, then allowing Labour-supporting Sue Gray to conduct her ‘ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt’.
He insists the reports of wild parties were absurdly overblown by his enemies on the Left and embittered former advisers, especially Dominic Cummings.
‘I was so confident of our fundamental innocence that never once did I think the story would really endanger the Government,’ he says. ‘I saw no cake, I ate no blooming cake.’
After the giddy heights of 2019, it is a chastened and hugely diminished Tory party that convenes in Birmingham tomorrow for its annual conference.
Having betrayed and ultimately defenestrated their most successful leader since Margaret Thatcher, their Commons presence is reduced to a rump of 121 MPs, less than a third the number won under Boris. They are fighting for relevance – maybe even survival.
Mr Johnson also insists that reports of wild parties were overblown both by Labour and his then special adviser Dominic Cummings
The Conservative will soon choose between the remaining four candidates, Robert Jenrick (top left), Kemi Badenoch (top right), James Cleverly (bottom left) and Tom Tugendhat (bottom right). A new leader will be in place in time for Budget day
The party has been written off before, however. After Tony Blair’s 1997 triumph, one of his senior aides spoke of ‘the strange death of Tory England’. They pulled back from the brink then and can do so again.
A leadership race is in train and the party will soon choose between the four remaining candidates. Sensibly the contest has been curtailed by a week so the winner will be in place by Budget day.
Any sheen there may have been around this Labour government has already faded and the Budget is expected to be a major assault on the livelihoods of middle Britain.
This presents an opportunity for the new leader to remind the public there is an alternative to Labour’s big-state, high-tax, class-war agenda. But the prospectus has to be based on genuine Conservative values, not the sort of wishy-washy, Labour-lite drivel that put them where they are today.
This book reminds us Boris won in 2019 by convincing the electorate he was on their side. The new leader must do the same.
