October 5, 2024 - 9:30am
A man cheated of his rightful, glorious legacy by mere circumstance — this was the anguished self-portrait Boris Johnson painted in an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby last night, projecting a relaxed but scrappy unrepentance, peppered with the rhetorical flourish with which we are so familiar.
There was no mea culpa from this latinate literarian over Number 10 lockdown frivolities, questions over his ethics and standards, and actual policy outcomes. Instead, we saw Boris pine longingly for a forgotten erstwhile future. It’s obvious — he would do almost anything to have had more time in Downing Street. “We barely got going,” he lamented.
Unsubtly scheduled to launch just days before the Tory leadership finalists are chosen by the parliamentary Conservative Party, Johnson’s new book, Unleashed, is an unabashed sales pitch for his brand of conservatism and an apologia of his eventful three-year premiership. His message to MPs and party members considering how to vote in this leadership election was clear: I was a winner, do as I did.
“Get back to the winning agenda that we had,” he said. “In 2019, we put together an enormous coalition of people. What we did wrong was turn our backs on two vast sectors of our coalition, and we need to get them back.” He managed to resist the tempting news line of backing a specific candidate, while not denying that Robert Jenrick’s throaty rejection of the ECHR met with his approval.
Gifted the interview after the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg accidentally sent her preparatory notes to Johnson, ITV’s Tom Bradby was stylistically free to appeal with emotion-laden exasperation at the former PM over the Number 10 lockdown frivolities. In his own book Johnson described the “grovelling” and “pathetic” apologies he made at the time as a mistake, but he offered little contrition when pressured to the viewers at home.
“I think that the blanket apology — the sort of apology I issued right at the beginning — I think the trouble with it was that afterwards, all the accusations that then rained down on officials who’d been working very hard in Number 10 and elsewhere were thought to be true,” he said. “And by apologising I had sort of inadvertently validated the entire corpus and it wasn’t fair on those people”. Through these remarks, he neatly deflected from how criticism has been almost entirely levelled at his leadership, and how he managed and oversaw a devil-may-care Number 10 operation that broke the very regulations it drafted. If the Prime Minister is not accountable for the culture and conduct of Downing Street, who is?
In the end, Johnson was brought back down to earth by a combination of the public becoming aware of the lockdown parties, successive scandals over propriety and ethics, basic operational political and policy competence — and the survival instinct of his colleagues, who were watching plummeting polling that pre-dated both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. His Cabinet and ministers resigned en masse, and as he acknowledged in his resignation speech: “The herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.”
Yet in being deposed so early, Boris has been saved from his own ego. By never truly being tested under conditions he would consider fair, the case for introspection, learning and personal growth can simply be disregarded. A horseshoe bat in China flapped its wings, and the rightful claimant to the prime ministerial throne was overthrown.
How ironic for the biographer of Churchill that Johnson so confidently rejected the idea that leaders are “meretricious bubbles on the vast tides of social history”. Churchill, he claimed, was a “withering retort to all that malarkey. He, and he alone, made the difference.” Well, Boris, doesn’t your ephemeral Number 10 legacy render you a meretricious bubble?
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SubscribeI think I’d struggle to show remorse when the next elected replacement of me is lionised in many quarters of the media and excused the same and often considerably worse sins.
Free Gear, Two Tier, and Curry’n’Beer is all that Boris was except humorous and communicative. I think these last characteristics are what did it for Johnson: the media is stuffed full of po-faced dullards in the mould of Starmer who seeth with jealousy and discontent. Sure, Johnson’s politics was the wrong sort for many, but his charisma (faux or not) really grated with the progeny of the metropolitan middle class that lack natural wit.
My former colleague (Durham, 2.2, daddy commissioning editor at the BBC) quite literally spent his every day of lockdown churning out anti-Boris copy like the stuff above simply because he hated him at a personal level: when they worked together Johnson could always charm his managers to avoid trouble. I did suggest my colleague try not being a humourless mood hoover, but he ignored my advice. He now writes here and I don’t so take what you will from that.
Apparently the ‘partygate’ folk worked closely together day after day, month after month; if so then having a drink together added no further danger to themselves or anyone else. Was the same true of Starmer’s ‘currygate’, regional meeting? Why was Kier in the clear?
Bullied against his libertarian instincts by clever scientists (overturning their pre-pandemic plans, as followed by Sweden) to impose restrictions on the general public, not many leaders would have had the courage to resist and few did. Johnson copped such blame that his end was near.
The results of his term as PM were mixed in my view but if Boris was like a “wonky shopping trolley” then Sir Keir is even wonkier.
In addition the vast majority of them were not Conservative party staff but Civil Servants but this is conveniently ignored by the media and left aing commentators and
“beergate” deniers.
The nastiness of this was that while Boris and his colleagues were all working hugger mugger He and They were on tv and other media telling the gullible general public,the stupid ones,ie the majority,that to be in contact with your granny for even ONE MINUTE would pass on the contagion to her and she’d die. Thats why people are still outraged by it. I suspect a great many people actually relished having a legitimate excuse to stop bothering about Granny,the sad moany old bag,and were joyful when Boris “banned” Xmas so they felt free from the obligation to ” do” trad style Xmas dinner and have all the family round. That suited me too. But anyone who was compliant and stupid enough.to obey the “don’t visit.Granny rule” is contemptible.Tolerate that and they’re coming for your children.
I suspect he writes here to mirror the Gove/ Times anti Boris obsession.
I never gave two hoots about who did what with the Prosecco in No. 10, but by 2022 it was obvious Boris had to go.
He did nothing to capitalise on Brexit. He was uninterested in delivering on levelling up. He was positively Socialist in splashing taxpayers’ cash. Under him, the government was a dysfunctional mess. Getting him to make a decision and stick to it was like pulling teeth.
As prime minister, he was a disaster.
Oh I agree Boris was a crap PM. But the choice was never between him and a better PM. The choice was between Johnson and another May or a Sunak or a Starmer or a Corbyn. Lockdown, build back better, net zero, the legislative pipeline: the state was going to force all of these decisions on the sitting government, with the government given only a limited discretion on the finer detail. The depressing truth is the history of 2019 – 2022 would have been slightly worse with any of the alternatives.
I’d say he was a pretty decent PM right up until Carrie started dictating policy.
A good point…
As a Human Being hes a Disaster.
I enjoy reading your comments Nell and have wondered why Unherd don’t get you to write a piece
I’ll second that. I always read your comments with great interest, Nell.
Sue Gray was the Eminence Gris who plotted the defenestration of Boris.
I would have voted for him again, but not Truss or Sunak. However, even they seem to embody more of the dynamism required of leadership than ol’ turnip head 2TK.
It’s interesting that 2TK or Two Tier is never mentioned in the media. Below the line and in everyday conversation it is ubiquitous but somehow it rarely makes it above the line. The media normally loves a handle no matter how inaccurate (or libelous) and Two Tier is beautifully short, two simple sounds, and an alliteration to boot. Yet I will never hear a Hislop or Vine say “Two Tier” like they used Beano, Buffoon, BoJo, and BoZo in lieu of Johnson’s name.
I suspect that the BBC’s usual stable of rancid, left wing comedians are all starting to look a bit green around the gills – what material are they going to have now? Will they eat their own? (I doubt it). I guarantee, with absolute certainty, that the minute the conservatives have elected a new leader, that person will become the butt of of all their jokes. Spavined curs the lot of them.
But, but, but … his dad was a tool-maker!
One would need to consider Johnson’s ‘surprise’ April of 22 trip to Kyiv his greatest disaster. Like many politicians in trouble at home the international stage often beckons. His encouragement of Ukraine ‘fight them on the beaches’ pep talk when a peaceful resolution was in the works from the Istanbul talks and the hundreds of thousands of deaths which ensued should qualify as his worst moment.
But it offered the comedic actor in the Ukrainian president’s office an opportunity to play on a global stage and bring the scale of attention, that is after all, what most actors are fundamentally all about. Look at me.
Tragic.
But not to worry, Johnson and Zelensky will be just fine, they can go on to write their memoirs. It’s the human wreckage that they leave in their wakes that is their true legacy no matter what they try and tell you.
I guess if Russia had occupied the Isle of Wight and then decided to take a slice of England, you would be happy if we then negotiated a concession.
I suspect that your knowledge of Ukraine’s history and ethnic make up and tensions leave you with that opinion.
But I’ve seen enough in Vietnam, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan to know where western (American mostly) support leads. Most recently it saw the Americans spend a trillion dollars in Afghanistan over two decades and replace the Taliban with……well, the Taliban.
Ukraine meet garden path.
My knowledge of Ukrainian history and ethnicity isn’t great but enough to know that Russia has no historic right to own it,against the wishes of the majority of Ukrainians – evident not least for their willingness to fight plus the overwhelming presidential vote for Zelenski against his Russia-friendly opponent.
They can have the lot. MY ENGLAND is not YOUR ENGLAND and that’s the problem. MY ENGLAND is the one portrayed by Eric Ravillious. I hear YOUR ENGLAND the vile version I loathe on many a radio phone in….” Engerland ter me is dahn the pub on Sunday mornin discussin the footie wiv me mates then rahnd me Nans fer a good old Sunday roast,no one does a Sunday roast like me Nan,then it’s off to Westfield wiv the wife and kids fer the afternoon.” Not my England. You fight for it if you want. Not me.
What on earth are you on about? What have delightful paintings and rough, working class culture got to do with the thought of a foreign invasion of England? I’m baffled.
In December 2019 the country was given the choice as Prime Minister of either having a man who had been both Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary and one who had had no ministerial experience in his 36 years in Parliament , who had voted voted against his own Labour Government numerous times , who had entertained members of the IRA in the Houses of Parliament and who was a friend of Middle Eastern terrorists. In spite of his many faults the country wisely chose the former. Yet within three months of his winning an 80 seat majority Boris Johnson was felled by the worst peace time pandemic in a century- one which fully exposed the weaknesses we all knew he had. The rest is history.
Yes. And let’s not forget that before he became foreign secretary he penned a fine piece of doggerel in the Spectator (?) about Recep Erdoğan – “There was a young fellah from Ankara, who was an enormous wankerah. He sowed his wild oats with the aid of a goat, and didn’t even bother to thankerah.” Must have made his first official visit to Turkey interesting – almost as much fun as watching Lammy trying to work out which fork to use at an embassy dinner, and looking puzzled when stilton is served with port at the end of the meal.
It was a plandemic, not a pandemic. Johnson survived as London Mayor via minimal personal input and delegation to a largely able staff while careering around like a loose cannon. This management style failed in government where character, leadership and decision making were required. Johnson is an empty vessel swayed by the winds, the shipwreck was inevitable. Max Hastings was correct.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-johnson-prime-minister-tory-party-britain
There isn’t much to say about Bojo that hasn’t already been said. He lies so much he ties himself in complete knots.
The thing that most came across when watching the Interview was how thin-skinned he is. Not a great characteristic in a politician.
Thicker skinned than Two tier, free gear, no idea keir. At least Johnson didn’t remove portraits of Blair and Brown.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Boris Johnson is a law unto himself.
I think it was a picture of Thatcher in his office that got removed. The pictures of all previous PMs are all still in Number 10 on the main staircase.
“basic operational political and policy competence”
This was the core of Johnson’s problem. Cheery bluster and hail-fellow-well-met bonhomie aside, he was, and I suspect still is, a disorganised mess; a chaotic, priapic, anarcho-bohemian libertine. A prerequisite of leadership is competent execution and Johnson simply lacks that skill. I know lots of people who start to foam at the mouth at the mention of his name and revile him as the worst PM ever, ever, EVER . . . which always puzzles me because I regard him as one of the least effective. It wasn’t that he did evil, he didn’t really do much of anything at all. In some respects he was lucky that the pandemic came along as I suspect otherwise he’d have been found out much sooner.
Actually the Running of Downing street is a civil service job. Not a PMs.
Johnson was thankfully brought down by the fact that the public came to realise that the entire C19 plandemic was a (globalist engineered) scam. He obviously already knew this, hence ambivalence to (corrupted) scientific advice which morphed into full on parties during “lockdown” His was a completely dysfunctional premiership that will certainly go down in history as one of the worst – possibly except for Starmer’s single term??
Johnson is mediocre in everything he attempted and given way too much leeway by the media. He is of low intelligence and a fool to boot. A moronic Brexit UK elected a moron. It was as it was.
There is a difference between being intelligent and being wise. There is plenty of evidence that Boris is intelligent (not least because he won a Kings scolarship to Eaton rather than simply paying all the fees, like Cameron’s family). His wisdom is less certain and a valid topic for debate.
I read his book on the history of London. It was funny,well researched and entertaining. So can he stick to writing .books in future please.
Boris was lots more fun than the present incumbent, you have to give him that. Agreed, not as well dressed.
The people in charge of taking care of our societies infrastructure ,our servants,are supposed to be capable and efficient. If they want us to pay them to entertain us they should join Equity and be entertainers,comedians,except as Bob Monkhouse said,no ones laughing now. If I tell some one to clean my kitchen floor that’s what they do,not fool around and tell me jokes.
What do you expect from a guy with no self-awareness.