Boris Johnson: The Gambler

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Overall, this is a disappointing read, and perhaps I should have paid more attention to the fact that all the quotes on the front are from right wing newspapers or commentators. More than that, the litany of mis-spelled words : “his principle enemy”; “the principle reason he did X. Another brilliant book by the master biographer ― Piers Morgan --This text refers to the paperback edition.

An unauthorised biography by Bower of Richard Desmond, provisionally entitled Rough Trader, awaits publication. Ce livre est non seulement distrayant, mais un must si on veut comprendre ce qui s’est réellement passé au Royaume-Uni ces dernières décennies.I was hoping for more detail and insight into Johnson’s own hospitalisation and brush with death as a result of Covid, but all that Bower presents is a rehash of existing information from other sources. Whilst there is no doubt that some of the people Johnson trusted let him down, many of the mistakes are clearly of his making, even if he refused to take responsibility (at a minimum, he hired most of his inner circle, and therefore is at least partly to blame for their incompetence). Democracy, every now and then, and usually after a severe crisis, bowls a 'googley' and delivers a dangerous unprincipled 'populist' leader, the like of Trump, Bolsonarro and Boris. His previous book published in 2018, The Rebel Prince the story of Prince Charles's scandal ridden bid to rehabilitate himself after Princess Diana's death, was a number one best seller. In Bower’s telling, Johnson Snr is a lifelong flake: dabbling in jobs, failing at most of them, then using his connections to find something else.

However, having read his book on Corbyn last year, Johnson comes out slightly better from the Bower treatment - especially over his time as mayor of London. When it comes to criticise one of the models produced for the pandemic, the author is unsure if it was written in C or Fortran (p. No matter that she had forgiven him so much; she had dared to deny him once too often when he demanded unquestioning full-time adulation. Unfortunately, however, as it progresses it becomes more rushed and less well-structured, and the final few chapters almost completely ignore Brexit at the expense of a very generalist account of the battle against Covid. However, he is so clearly sympathetic to "Boris" that it does feel that this skews the overall balance of the book.Ever since Harold Wilson imposed socialism on Britain after 1964, the country’s decline had been marked by a crippling brain drain. an assertion that is hard to square with her 16 years of experience in the highest court in the land, which routinely hears cases around administrative and constitutional law. Bower vaguely tries to place the blame of Johnson’s considerable personal failings at the door of an abusive childhood but this theme barely makes it past the introduction as Stanley barely makes an appearance in the narrative. In the end I came away with enormous respect for Johnson, is continually attacked on all fronts by colleagues within his party, the media in general and the Metropolitan elites in particular, who can never forgive him for clinching Brexit. Naturally, Stanley began sleeping with one of the two young women, in full knowledge of his children.