Politics
From Covid to Kosovo: five things we learned from Boris Johnson's memoirs | Boris Johnson
1. He's baffled by conservatives who have abandoned him and convinced him to win this year's election.
Johnson's account of the torrid summer that ended his premiership is filled with perplexity. Although he admits to some errors, including failing to read the findings against disgraced MP Owen Paterson before defending him publicly, he essentially believes MPs were wrong to defenestrate him.
When Rishi Sunak resigned as chancellor it was worse than a crime, I thought, it was a mistake for both Rishi and the party, not to mention the country. So it turned out. Johnson's greatest failure, as he recalls, was not sufficiently flattering Tory MPs. Too often I would return to apartment number ten, tired, and work late into the evening, when I should have been talking to my colleagues and keeping them cheerful. If his colleagues had stuck together, he is convinced that we would have won in 2024.
2. Partygate was concocted by Cummings and Cain
Johnson's account of what he calls this miserable and extremely bloated affair is that on about 15 occasions, officials briefly slowed the pace of their work and raised a glass. On a few occasions he joined them.
He maintains that these events were within Covid rules, but that his former chief of staff Dominic Cummings and his communications director Lee Cain orchestrated a series of grossly exaggerated media reports in a deliberate attempt to undermine him. The two men were, he said, behind it all. He believes he could have weathered the storm if he had been much more robust at the time.
Elsewhere, Cummings is barely mentioned: the trivial feud that resulted in Sajid Javid's resignation in February 2020 was, Johnson says, manufactured by people who really didn't have my best interests at heart. The internecine feud that resulted in the departures of Cummings and Cain, in November 2020, paints it as handbags.
3. He doesn't regret the pandemic much
The chapters on Covid are the most thorough and constitute Johnson's justification for his decision-making at every stage.
He shook hands with staff when visiting Covid patients at the Royal Free Hospital, because shaking hands is an ancient human gesture of goodwill and he did not want to cause undue alarm.
He highlights the fragmentary nature of the information available at first, including the misconception that asymptomatic transmission was unlikely. A moment of revelation appears to have occurred when he watched footage of overwhelmed Italian hospitals, which he knew were generally good because he had used them when his child fell into the swimming pool while on vacation in Umbria. There is no recognition that the government could, or should, have acted more quickly to suppress the ancient and sacred freedoms of the people, as it says.
4. He's a closet Keynesian
Although he would never use the term, Johnson clearly believes, like economist John Maynard Keynes, that a healthy dose of government spending can help the economy weather tough times.
After the 2008 banking crisis, as mayor of London, he describes supporting Crossrail to prevent George Osborne from considering budget cuts when the Conservative coalition came to power in 2010. These big investments Crossrail, the Olympic venue, the Westfield Center in Shepherd Bush's projects were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programs that kept works on site and people in work.
Never a supporter of austerity, he repeatedly praises infrastructure projects, particularly in transport. As Covid subsided, he says, we had to use this terrifying moment to our advantage by continuing full steam ahead with our investments in everything from HS2 to hospitals to broadband. He deplores Sunak's subsequent decision to cancel large parts of HS2.
5. He has many serious thoughts on foreign policy
While you may have picked up the book to read about the drama of Brexit or the shame of Partygate, Johnson wants you to know that he has thought about important geopolitical questions.
There are chapters on Kosovo, where he was reporting for the Telegraph when NATO troops arrived, the invasion of Iraq (an arrogant, conceited and misbegotten adventure), Libya and Syria , where we really hit Assad when Johnson was Foreign Secretary, which he suggests. It was all the West could have done in the circumstances.
He repeatedly rejects the idea that Brexit has made the UK more insular, insisting that his travels as foreign secretary and prime minister have convinced him that many countries around the world wanted more Britain, especially in places where Britain was already well known.
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Sources 2/ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/03/from-covid-to-kosovo-five-things-we-learned-from-boris-johnsons-memoir The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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