Boris Johnson: The Gambler

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asks Bower, suggesting that of recent prime ministers only the chemistry graduate, Margaret Thatcher, would have been in a position to do such a thing. Bower is married to Veronica Wadley, former editor of the London Evening Standard, and has four children.

The man cheats on his wives, he lies, he manipulates, he lets people down, he is an egomaniac concerned only about himself, he will do whatever is necessary to get to the top and can't be trusted. manner and yes, the father Stanley is a dissolute wastrel and wife abuser, which Boris too has embraced gleefully, but many other people came out of dysfunctional families to do something relevant and useful. Sadly in Boris' case, the Churchillian moment arrived, and he has through his weak attention to detail, autocratic leadership style, promotion of 'yes men', poor organisational skills, 'gung ho' approach, libertarianism, and his need to be loved and admired by all, allowed the UK to fall into it's greatest peace time crisis. 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.

There are some new nuggets – I’d happily have read more about Johnson’s fisticuffs with George Osborne when the two men were in a lift together during a visit to China – and some useful insights. Photograph: Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament Handout/EPA View image in fullscreen Boris Johnson during a parliamentary session on Covid. When discussing Covid in particular, the author seems to blame everyone but Johnson, and by the end the account simply turns into an incoherent rant about Covid rather than telling an accurate story about Johnson’s premiership.

Contains a string of startling revelations about Mr Johnson's public and personal life, and goes farther than any previous biography towards solving the enigma of his true personality .His ascent to Number 10 in the wake of the acrimonious, era-defining Brexit referendum would prove to be only the first act in an epic drama that saw him play both hero and villain - from proroguing parliament to his controversial leadership of the Covid-19 Crisis, all against the backdrop of divorce, marriage, the birth of his sixth child, revolts among Tory MPs and the countdown to Brexit. Inadequate teachers and the extremist National Union of Teachers described Gove as ‘a demented Dalek on speed, who wants to exterminate everything good in education’. 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. My only quibble would be that when the Tory rebels were making life extremely difficult for their leader, once they had voted against him, he withdrew the whip, and every one of those hapless people have now gone from public life, (I think a few low key individuals remain) but I felt at such a critical time of Johnson's leadership, there needed more.

It’s very rare that I find a biography so hard to put down that I put away 300 pages in one weekend, but this one hit the spot! There have been books on Johnson before, some fawning, some full of spite, I was hoping for something in between, a genuine look at the man, his politics and his complicated personal life.but one who respected the statesmanship, integrity and convictions of Thatcher, Major, Heseltine, and Cameron. That said, I have enjoyed some conservative commentators’ bewilderment at yesterday’s budget, but cakeism will inevitably turn into no treats for anyone unless he gets a grip. makes excuse after excuse - his father was a womaniser, beat his mother in front of him, the children were forced to witness their mother being admitted to hospital with a nervous breakdown, etc. There are numerous minor factual inaccuracies and the clunky sixth form style is faintly irritating - look I realise this comes from an obscure imprint somewhere in the muddy riverbed at Penguin Random, but couldn’t they afford a sub? Tom Bower [is] the master of the unauthorised biography' Tatler'Another brilliant book by the master biographer' Piers Morgan*Hero or villain?

That said, there are one or two amusing anecdotes revealing the depth of Johnson’s rivalry with David Cameron and his disdain for the acolyte George Osborne - such as his having initiated fisticuffs with each of them during the coalition years and their having to be pulled off by aides (fnarr fnarr), or Boris’s text on the morning of the 2015 general election: “good luck Dave and if you bog it up I’m standing by to fill the gap!Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that Bower appears to be on a mission to explain why the blond bombshell has not (yet) proved to be a political messiah. Shocking is the description at the end of the Corona period, had Johnson himself not got Corona, he would have neglected it even longer. Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill, did that with the entire war effort, from the manufacture of armaments to military strategy. The most egregious chapters relate to Brexit where Bower shows his strongly pro Brexit personal views.