Not very often do you come across a political leader who doesn’t take himself seriously. Boris Johnson, the former UK Prime Minister, is one such.
Whenever I have met him, first when he was the Mayor of London (he came cycling into one event) and later as Prime Minister (at his Diwali dinner for the Diaspora), his sheer chutzpah made a dramatic impression. At first, I was intimidated by his over seven-hundred-page memoirs, Unleashed, but found the book to be quite an easy read. It’s a no-holds barred account of contemporary political history of the UK told in his brash, inimitable style.
With breezy text supported by a very good collection of photographs, Johnson wonderfully chronicles his life at work as a journalist at the Telegraph, as the Editor at the Statesman, as an elected Member of Parliament, as the unforgettable Mayor of London, as a serious foreign secretary, and a noisy Prime Minister who won a landslide victory on a Brexit mandate only to be felled by Covid-triggered political hubris.
Even if you don’t follow British politics, this ringside fast-paced account of his public life is an enjoyable read. It doesn’t feel long or verbose and Johnson adds colloquial style commentary to his journalistic ability to keep you fully engaged.
The Cycling Mayor
Right from the get-go, the book is a delight. Beginning with his sudden nomination for a mayoral role in London, Johnson rapidly lists the various initiatives he launched to make London more livable including tackling the traffic, making it cycling friendly and setting about immigrant controls. Johnson recounts how he had convinced the head of Barclays Bank to pay 25 million pounds to sponsor the cycles in London, by offering, in his trademark jest, to change his name to Barclays Johnson!
Johnson admits that he’s been branded as a gaffe-prone scandal magnet who used slander and dangerous language to incite people to react badly. By his own admission, early in his career, as a host of the satirical game show, I’ve Got news for you, he gained a reputation as a brash cowboy with a delectable repartee, which he’s not been able to shake off.
One theme that runs through the book is his idea of ‘Levelling Up’ - or uplifting people, cities and towns from their status, a sort of ‘Let’s make Britain great again’.
Citing the practice that graduate females seek to marry graduate males, he wonders if ‘assortive mating’ to encourage social mobility amongst the people will reduce the social class gap.
In his initial days as a mayor, Johnson realised that the UK was an imbalanced economy with London being 56 per cent more productive than Wales, unlike in the US or in the EU which have a homogenous productivity level across their states. He aggressively participated in the Brexit movement to reduce dependence on the EU and bring jobs and income to the counties outside London, more so in the North and Southeast of the UK.To create jobs, he flagged off the indigenous manufacture of the iconic red London buses.
He was in his second term as Mayor when London hosted the Olympics and he leveraged it greatly to prove himself as an able administrator.
Brexit Boris
Johnson was, undoubtedly, the most visible face of Brexit. He used the ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogan to power his way to an unprecedented victory in the British Parliament leading his party to a landslide win, not seen since Margaret Thatcher. With ample humour, Johnson peppers his narrative with terms like Brexity, Brexchosis, Brino (Brexit in name only), Brexiteers, No deal Brexit and Brexit juice (a wine) that had caught popular imagination and why implementing the referendum to leave the EU seemed so tough.
His Wodehousian descriptors tickle many funny bones. Sample this- The UK had a chief Brexit negotiator in David Frost, a former Don and Diplomat, as aesthete and expert on medieval German poetry, whose mobile screensaver, for some reason, is the Adoration of the Blessed Lamb by Jan van Eyck. Frosty presented his case to the EU with clarity and logic; and yes, he got a frosty reception.
Sir Keir Starmer, the current UK prime minister, has been described at various points in the narrative as the bone headed, anti-Brexit Remainder, a human bollard, pointless traffic cone, rapist releaser, human weather wane (since he changes direction on policy so often), a boxy headed Barrister, a republican who wants to get rid of the queen and drop the Union flag, a leftie who dwells in a stacchoed Islington Palazzo. At one point in the narrative, he even takes off on Teresa May’s twitchy nose.
Cake-ism
His other oft quoted life principle is Cake-ism – that is, having your cake and eating it too. He claims much credit for the plan to lay high speed train tracks and beef up infrastructure in the UK. His belief that he did no wrong and that he’s compelled to tell it like it is, flows through the book. But to say that he deserves credit for initiatives in infrastructure, connectivity, NHS, education, and climate issues that he drove when in power is a bit unbelievable.
Global Player
From his travels to over 150 countries as foreign secretary, Johnson has many learnings - he laments about the decline in the spirit of British adventurism that had led Britain in its days of glory and the need to rework on a plan to regain some of the earlier halo.
Quick chapters give us the diplomatic strategies used to overcome dictators in Libya, Kosovo, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. Using self-deprecating humour, Boris sets out how the liberal interventionism is being used by the western world to control what they assume is an abuse of power by autocrats against their own people with devastating consequences.
Almost out of a film script, Johnson made an overnight, clandestine train trip to Ukraine and besides the photo-op, pledged much military and political support to Zelensky. As if he was attempting to avenge the Salisbury acid attack carried out in London by Russians a few years earlier.
These are the most serious chapters in the book, describing the arms deals, the filth and squalor of developing countries and the price of war people pay.
The Covid Backlash
Johnson does a bit of hyperbolic self-praise for his singular achievement for creating a home-grown vaccine for covid in a record time in the UK with Astra Zeneca and immunizing nearly the entire population over a few months. While he draws sympathy in the chapter about his own hospitalisation during Covid, it was the partying he did under the lockdown rules that got Labor into mounting an attack that put an end to his tenure at 10, Downing Street.
He blatantly names, blames, and shames his party colleagues and the fact that he couldn’t meet the 109 first time MPs in parliament physically due to covid restrictions resulted in a sort of alienation that eventually brought him down. He condemns his own complacency during this PM’s tenure to have not watched the back-benchers plotting against him.
Set for Sequel?
Must admit I haven’t read any of Johnson’s previous books. The autobiography makes me feel like picking a few of his earlier books, especially his biography of Winston Churchill. One thing that he copies from the great man is an afternoon nap on his sofa in the office.
You can’t resist a chuckle on his anecdote of how when Prime Minister Teresa May went to meet President Donald Trump, he asked her bluntly why Boris Johnson is not the PMof UK yet!
The book comes at a time when his conservative party has just lost the elections to Labor after nearly fourteen years in power and Johnson may be using the book to airbrush a part of history to plot a comeback. Something tells me there’s possibly another eight-hundred-page book yet to be written about the things he’s going to do in the years ahead.
Read this one, it’s an absolute delight.
(Naveen Chandra runs 91 Film Studios, that produces, markets, and distributes regional language feature films. )
Title: Unleashed
Author: Boris Johnson
Publisher: William Collins
Price: ₹686