Johnson at 10: The Inside Story: The Bestselling Political Biography of the Year

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Survival by divide and rule and the blame game - even “her upstairs” got to carry the can from time to time! Weak and needy, hence the plethora of advisers, some more dysfunctional than others. Comparisons with other PMs, especially Lloyd George, though the authors see Johnson as a very poor second to the Welsh wizzard.

Anthony Seldon on Boris Johnson: ‘At his heart, he is

Boris Johnson and wife Carrie on their final day in Downing Street. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell’s new publication, ‘Johnson at 10: The Inside Story’, documents how one of the most colourful politicians this country has known navigated a number of crises that will define its place in the world for decades to come.

Grove Press An imprint of Grove Atlantic, an American independent publisher, who publish in the UK through Atlantic Books. Boris Johnson was a man fit to lead and perform, but never to govern and articulate. A chronic people-pleaser, with an awful taste in colleagues and an even worse taste in advice, his premiership was defined by circumstance so much more than his own decision. Here was a prime minister with a potential for greatness, surrounded by supremely able people, who waffled and squandered his way to an early grave at the hands of people he could never let down. As much as he longed to be a Thatcher or a Churchill, he was so much the Brown or Callaghan he had dreaded from the start. UK: Rishi Sunak hosts talks with Kamala Harris, vice-president of the US, at No 10, followed by a private dinner; Harris also delivers a policy speech on the future of AI at the US embassy in London; Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, speaks at the annual conference of the King’s Fund, a health think tank; start of Movember, the moustache-growing charity event held during November each year to raise funds and awareness for men’s health.

Johnson at 10 (Audio Download): Anthony Seldon, Raymond Johnson at 10 (Audio Download): Anthony Seldon, Raymond

Well,” he says, “this is the reason why for the moment Starmer is disappointing, because there is this enormous desire for renewal. But Starmer seems micro when he could be macro, cautious when he could be passionate, dull where he could be inspirational.” Rarely in 300 years and never since 1916 has a Prime Minister been so poor at appointments, so incompetent at running Cabinet government, or so incapable of finding a stable team to run No. 10. The Prime Minister is the chief executive, yet he belittled the executive and allowed his ministers to do the same, but without producing badly needed practical solutions for improvement. Nor did he act on ambitious plans to reform central government after Brexit. It is hard to find a Prime Minister who has done more to damage the fabric of government.“The book states that Johnson described his then-fiancee Carrie as “mad and crazy” as he used her as an excuse to avoid confrontations.

Johnson at 10: The Inside Story by Anthony Seldon | Goodreads Johnson at 10: The Inside Story by Anthony Seldon | Goodreads

I doubt Johnson will have read it, but his wife Carrie will and probably realise that somewhere ahead a very damning account of her role in his downfall is coming. But of course it's Johnson alone who destroyed this premiership. A life built on lies and infidelity in all his relationships was bound to end in tears. But of course the adolescent “disruptors” that Johnson was amused and supported by had no interest in that work. Their goal was either personal enrichment or, in Cummings’s case, the application of that Silicon Valley mantra “to move fast and break things”. Disruptive change can work in the commercial sector because you are replacing one product or technology with another in a limited market. One lesson of Seldon’s book is that to apply that idea to government is a fundamental misunderstanding of what government is. Degrading and destroying institutions is not the way to reform them. I think that Johnson and Cummings were what was needed to bring the country to its senses,” he suggests. “People didn’t want things broken up. They wanted to be listened to. They wanted institutions that were more relevant to them. They felt excluded by metropolitan elite. Nobody is happy with what has happened.” This is not a book that I enjoyed, not a book to be enjoyed from the viewpoint of my politics certainly because of all of the depressing confirmation that it provided of the failings that Johnson brought into No.10 and the damage it did to our nation.

I suppose at least Cummings did believe in Brexit, although ultimately, really, did he?” he says. “From everything we heard [for the book] it just seemed Cummings was full of hatred. He probably hates himself; he certainly hates other people. He wants to destroy everything. Johnson in his own way never knew what he stood for, but he shared that contempt for the Tory party, contempt for the cabinet, contempt for the civil service, contempt for the EU, contempt for the army, contempt for business, contempt for intellectuals, contempt for universities.” They shared a willingness to take enormous risks with the constitution, as with their casual relationship with the truth and malleable principles,” state the authors in their introduction. “Their ferocious sexual and financial appetites led them into deep and repetitive trouble. Both thought nothing of using powers of patronage to make outrageous appointments which were nakedly to their own benefit. Both indeed rather enjoyed being outrageous.”