Boris Johnson unleashed on war, plague, former colleagues and royals, eyes political comeback
When Boris Johnson’s downfall came, it was unprecedented in the 300-year history of the prime ministership. His government was marked by scandal and sleaze. Regrets, he has a few – but not enough to stop him mulling a return to power.
Boris Johnson could be ill-disciplined, always dishevelled, sometimes loose with the truth, disposed to clownish antics and silly stunts, and often gave rambling and indecipherable statements. He could also be intelligent, politically shrewd and wildly popular as an anti-establishment figure.
When he Zooms in from London on a typically grey morning from the city he once ruled, I am not quite sure which Boris will show up. As he appears on screen, the former prime minister is, as ever, energetic and cheerful. He runs hands through his shock of blonde hair, rocks back and forth on his chair, and laughs out loud.
He is spruiking his already bestselling memoir, Unleashed, which weighs in at 772 pages. It is breezy, interesting, hilarious and, at times, unpersuasive. It will do nothing to change the views of those who have made their minds up about him.
I have written – gulp – that he was a failed prime minister yet also find him smart, engaging and fun. In any event, here he is.
There is nobody like BoJo. He was a gifted journalist and author, although sometimes unreliable. He transformed London. His government was challenged by plague at home and war abroad. He was an advocate for green energy. He believed in “levelling-up” opportunities. In all of this, he adopted the happy warrior approach to politics.
“Politics is incredibly important,” Johnson, 60, tells Inquirer. “The decisions that we, the politicians, take about the direction of the country matter enormously. Why is Baghdad, once the greatest thing on earth, now in such terrible trouble? Why do some cities in North America have buildings falling down and some are flourishing? Why is crime rampant in one city and not another?
“It’s politics, politics, politics. It’s leadership, leadership, leadership. It’s the people in charge, and they make all the difference. It’s sad, but true. And, you know, why are there famines in Africa? It’s not because of some geographical thing. It’s because of leadership. Because of the governments, because of corruption, because of leadership. And so, politics is absolutely crucial.
“Those of us who try to do politics have got to explain what we are doing in the most accessible possible way. And so, I make no apology – as we always say ‘I make no apology’ – for trying to make Unleashed as readable as I possibly can.
“There are 60 chapters. It’s like a huge double-sized packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. Each of the 60 biscuits contains a nourishable pabulum of wheat and wholemeal sustenance. But you also have the lovely chocolate covering, inducing you to go on to the next biscuit.”
See how quickly that went off the rails? He went from articulating the importance of politics and the art of leadership to a packet of biscuits? No wonder he drove people bonkers.
Unleashed is a cut above the typical dreary political memoir. But there is little about his upbringing, education or career as a journalist. There is not much about his personal life. (We still don’t know how many children he has.) But he covers at length his time as London mayor (2008-16), foreign secretary (2016-18) and prime minister (2019-22).
The book is deliciously and scandalously indiscreet. Johnson writes about Theresa May’s “schoolmarmy self-righteousness” and David Cameron’s threat to “f..k you up forever” if he supported leaving the EU, while Keir Starmer had an “irritable face”. He blames “old amigo” Dominic Cummings for leaks that undid him. He reveals a “pep talk” with Prince Harry to try and stop “Megxit” and that the Queen died of bone cancer.
Alongside the use of “BIFF!, “SOCKO!” and “DOOOF!” are thoughtful and interesting chapters on the case for a “green industrial (energy) revolution”, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s response, relations with countries in Asia and Europe, and wars in the Middle East.
He writes that security services found his toilet bugged after Bibi Netanyahu had used it.
His account of the $368bn AUKUS nuclear submarine pact runs counter to the accepted narrative. Johnson reveals Scott Morrison proposed Australia and the UK build a new submarine using Rolls-Royce nuclear propulsion. But the US would need to be involved, Johnson told him, so he became “matchmaker” at the G7 summit in 2021.
This required Morrison to renege on a $90bn deal with France to supply diesel-electric-powered submarines. Emmanuel Macron was blindsided. “There was a lot of skulduggery,” Johnson delights in telling me. “We had to pretend to Macron that nothing was going on and the French were all very suspicious.”
Incredibly, he suggests France could be part of AUKUS. “Maybe one day France could be involved,” Johnson says. “France is a Pacific power, has been for a long time, and there’s no reason in principle (why not). But at the moment it is, no question, it is an Anglosphere product.”
If China takes Taiwan by force and the US resists this, would AUKUS compel Australia and the UK to join their ally? “Generally speaking, the UK and US are shoulder to shoulder, and so is Australia,” he responds. “All our interests are engaged. This is something that is incredibly important for the world.” He adds: “I have no doubt that the positions of Australia, UK, and America will be very closely aligned.”
Johnson stood up to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, alongside the US and NATO, and Western allies including Australia. Johnson writes chillingly about the risk of Vladimir Putin becoming so desperate that he deploys nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “We can’t have borders being changed by force,” he says. “We can’t have autocratic governments thinking that they can use aggression to get their way.”
I first interviewed Johnson 10 years ago, in 2014, when he was London mayor. He had written a book about Winston Churchill. It was often suggested Johnson wanted to emulate Churchill. He reassured me then that he had more in common with a one-eyed pterodactyl.
“I’m afraid to say, having been prime minister, my verdict about myself in comparison to Churchill remains unadjusted,” Johnson laments. “He exercises a huge spell on politicians around the world. You can see it in Netanyahu, you can see it in (Volodymyr) Zelensky. But very few are really like him.”
Being mayor was fundamentally different to being prime minister. A talent for administration and party management are essential for policy and political success.
“It was a really different ball game,” Johnson says. He accepts that he did not pay enough attention to the different geography of power and demand for collaborative leadership.
“When I was mayor of London, I was a monarch,” he boasts. “I was lord of all I surveyed. I didn’t listen to the chirruping of dissent. I didn’t have backbenches. If I wanted to build a new bus, I built a new bus. If I wanted to construct a new cable car, I built a cable car. If I wanted to build a new Olympicopolis cultural village, we just got on and did it.”
For a while, his lone-ranger style paid dividends. When he led the Conservative Party to a landslide election victory and routed Jeremy Corbyn’s “semi-Marxist” Labour Party in 2019, he had every opportunity to be a significant prime minister. But he squandered it.
His advice to the Queen to prorogue parliament in 2019 was found unlawful by the Supreme Court. He controversially refurbished No.10 Downing Street, defended MP Owen Paterson who moonlighted as a corporate lobbyist, and promoted MP Chris Pincher despite being aware of investigations into alleged sexual misconduct.
The path to Brexit, from the campaign to leave the EU in 2016 to the wrecking of Cameron’s and May’s governments, and seeing it delivered in 2020, is chronicled at length in the book. “We had no plan,” Johnson concedes, after “Leave” won.
Not surprisingly, Brexit has been a disaster. Nigel Farage admits it “failed”. Johnson scoffs at this but the UK has suffered greater skills shortages, supply-chain and border delays, with higher taxes and spending, added regulations and even more migrants.
The UK economy is weaker and its leadership role in Europe has diminished.
I was in London when the city was locked down at the outset of the pandemic in 2020. The response was confused, action was delayed, then rushed, and the death toll was among the highest in the world at the height of the pandemic. When he got the virus, Johnson admits he thought he “might have carked it”. He told Michael Gove: “Pericles died of the plague.”
The so-called “party-gate” scandal – revelries in No.10 during lockdown – accelerated his demise. He is the only prime minister fined by police for breaking the law. Yet he calls it “the feeblest event in the history of human festivity” and insists “I ate no blooming cake!”
Johnson is not sure that repeated lockdowns were a good idea. He notes the fast rollout of vaccines was only possible because Brexit enabled the UK to sidestep EU processes. He had this crazy idea of an “aquatic raid” on The Netherlands to seize five million doses of AstraZeneca denied shipment to the UK. No, prime minister, he was told.
When he went to Buckingham Palace to be commissioned prime minister, the Queen reportedly said: “I don’t know why anyone would want the job.” He confirms to me that she did indeed say this. So why did Johnson want to be prime minister? I did not get a satisfactory answer. “You do it, really, because, um, you want to serve, because you’ve got an idea about the country.”
When Johnson’s downfall came, it was unprecedented in the 300-year history of the prime ministership. His government was marked by scandal and sleaze. The tolerance of his colleagues had run out. As ministers resigned en masse, he clung to power. He admits being “complacent” and “arrogant”, and making mistakes in managing multiple crises.
“I don’t blame my friends,” Johnson says. “It’s in the nature of the beast. The Tory parliamentary party is a rabble. They move and sway like some undersea creature with the tides. And that’s how it’s always been. It’s the job of a leader to keep them happy. With Covid, I just didn’t have enough time to see them, feel their pulse, reassure them.”
We may not have seen the end of Johnson. Could he find a constituency willing to select him as their candidate for the House of Commons? Certainly. Could he return to lead his party? Perhaps. And would Britons return him to the prime ministership? It cannot be ruled out.
So, does he want to be back at No.10 running the UK? “Look, I would not hide it from you, Troy,” he says. “I wish I was still doing it – of course!”
Finally, the real Boris.
Boris Johnson’s Unleashed is published by HarperCollins.
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