Boris Johnson “unchained” and without mincing his words in his memoirs

One of the first shocking revelations in “Unleashed” is the account of Queen Elizabeth II's final days, in which Johnson offers an intimate and moving view of her relationship with the monarch. On September 6, 2022, just two days before his death, Johnson spoke with the Queen about the war in Ukraine and diplomatic complications with India, a country reluctant to take a tough stance against Russia. The Queen, with her characteristic experience and composure, reminded him of something Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had told him in the 1950s: India would always side with Russia, and some things will never change. This reflection, steeped in history, was for Johnson an example of the incredible capacity to reassure and offer perspective that, according to him, sovereignty had. Two days later, Elizabeth II died, marking the end of an era. Johnson is now the first to dare to say that the monarch was suffering from bone cancer.

There were illnesses too when, in one of the book's most personal moments, he describes his own battle with Covid-19. Early in the pandemic, Johnson admits he underestimated the virus, thinking it would only be a minor inconvenience. However, his own health rapidly deteriorated and he describes how he went from a sturdy, energetic man to someone whose face was the color of mayonnaise. Throughout the book, Johnson repeatedly compares himself to historical figures, such as Pericles, the Athenian ruler who died during the plague in Athens in the 5th century BC. Recalling a conversation with his colleague Michael Gove, he comments: Pericles died of the plague. to which Gove, according to Johnson, reacted with his shiny glasses like the penguin from Wallace and Gromit.

Even his dog, Dilyn, has not escaped the impact of the virus, Johnson says with his usual humor. After having covered a few hundred meters, he fell flat, his tongue hanging out. This blending of the personal and the absurd is a constant in Unleashed, a reflection of how Johnson has attempted to manage his public image over the course of his career.

Invade a NATO ally

But while the personal accounts of his illness are gripping, the book is not without political surprises. One of the most disconcerting episodes of his mandate is his confession about a plan to invade the Netherlands in 2021, in the midst of a vaccine distribution crisis. With the AstraZeneca vaccine at the center of a dispute between the United Kingdom and the European Union, Johnson seriously considered the possibility of sending a military team to retrieve doses stored in a Leiden warehouse. “We had commissioned work to see if it was technically possible to launch a water strike and take what was legally ours and what the UK desperately needed,” Johnson writes. However, they were quickly informed that it would be almost impossible to carry out such a mission without detection, forcing the UK to explain why it was invading a NATO ally.

Johnson is quick to admit that the idea was crazy, but he also points out that in the midst of a pandemic, options seemed limited and the desperation was palpable. Throughout the book, Johnson defends his decisions during the pandemic, and does not fail to emphasize that, despite everything, Brexit and Bingham were the keys to winning the vaccine race, in reference to Kate Bingham, the head of the team of vaccines, which Johnson considers one of his most successful decisions.

Betrayed by a friend

In his biography, he also discusses the Partygate scandal, which shook his tenure and ultimately played a crucial role in his downfall. Johnson strongly denies breaking the rules, describing one of the celebrations as the most pathetic event in human history. According to his version, there was no birthday cake, no festive celebrations, and he accuses the likes of Sue Gray and Dominic Cummings of orchestrating a witch hunt to bring him down. Despite his defiant tone, Johnson acknowledges that he did not know how to handle the scandal and underestimated the impact it would have on his political reputation. “I should have realized that my old friend Dom Cummings, always resentful of Barnard Castle, was behind all this,” Johnson writes, referring to previous controversies in which his former right-hand man was involved.

There is also no shortage of criticism in his description of his political rival, Keir Starmer, current Prime Minister. Johnson did not hold back from mocking the Labor leader, recalling a debate in Parliament during the pandemic in which he said Starmer looked confused and nervous. His irritable face resembled that of a bull whose rectum had unexpectedly been thrust with a thermometer, writes Johnson once again, not cutting a single hair. Throughout the book, the former prime minister boasts of having hammered Starmer repeatedly in debates, accusing him of always being trapped by union pressure.

Avoid Megxit

Another episode in the book is about his failed attempt to avoid Megxit. Johnson reveals that in 2020, he was asked by members of the royal family and Downing Street officials to try to convince Prince Harry not to abandon the United Kingdom and his royal duties. It was a sort of man-to-man pep talk, completely unnecessary, Johnson admits. The meeting lasted only twenty minutes and, according to the former Prime Minister, it was clear from the start that Harry was determined to leave, whatever arguments he could make.

In his memoirs, Johnson displays the fame that preceded him by mixing the serious with the ridiculous. At one point, he muses on the possibility that Covid-19 is a man-made virus, likening the scientists responsible to the witches in Macbeth, mixing ingredients in a cauldron. It seems that some scientists were collecting fragments of viruses like the witches in Macbeth's bat eye and frog tongue and oops, the mischievous little creature jumped out of the test tube and started replicating all over the world. world.