
- 400 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
'Entertaining...essential...peppered with brilliant observations' Tim Shipman, Sunday Times
Andrew Gimson, whose previous book Boris is the essential read on Johnson's earlier career, returns with a penetrating and entertaining new account of Boris Johnson's turbulent time as prime minister, from the highs of a landslide election victory to the lows of his car-crash resignation. In Boris Johnson: The Rise and Fall of a Troublemaker at Number 10, Gimson sets out to discover how a man dismissed as a liar, charlatan and tasteless joke was able, despite being written off more frequently than any other British politician of the twenty-first century, to become prime minister. During his ascent, Johnson benefited from being regarded as a clown, for this meant his opponents failed to take him seriously, while his supporters delighted in his ability to shock and enrage the Establishment. He even changed the language of politics; a new word, 'cakeism', entered the English lexicon to describe his implausible but seductive claim during the Brexit negotiations that it was possible to have one's cake and eat it. In a series of brilliant vignettes, Gimson sheds light on the parts played by sex, greed, boredom and low seriousness in Johnson's rise and fall, describes how Partygate fatally imperilled his prime ministership, and places him in a line of Tory adventurers stretching back to Benjamin Disraeli: disreputable figures who often blew themselves up, but who also could display an astonishing ability to connect with the British public. What kind of a person is Johnson? What kind of a country would dream of making him its prime minister? And why did he fall? Nobody has got closer than Gimson to finding out the answers.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 1. Death of a Prime Minister
- 2. Cavorting Charlatan
- 3. The Gilded Cage
- 4. Liberal Cosmopolitan
- 5. Cakeism
- 6. Off Message
- 7. Put Down By May
- 8. Trump, Trump, Trump
- 9. On the Road to Mandalay
- 10. The Duncan Index
- 11. Calamitous Self-Harm
- 12. Crush the Saboteurs
- 13. A Provocation
- 14. A Clear Misuse of Official Statistics
- 15. A Pledge to the Reader
- 16. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
- 17. Pro Bono Publico, No Bloody Panico
- 18. Fuck Business
- 19. Resignation
- 20. The Wilderness Months
- 21. Letter Boxes
- 22. Marina Wheeler
- 23. Suicide Vest
- 24. Character Assassination
- 25. Carrie Symonds
- 26. Sorry, No Cherries
- 27. Starmerâs Standing Ovation
- 28. Johnson the Liberator
- 29. Manacles
- 30. Dinner at the Rees-Moggsâ
- 31. Nobody Runs Boris
- 32. The Longest Pause
- 33. Farage Triumphant
- 34. The Rising Star Community
- 35. The Stop Johnson Candidates
- 36. The Tory Tribe Chooses a New Chief
- 37. Sajid Javid
- 38. Aldous Macready
- 39. The Committee Corridor
- 40. Red Wine Spillage
- 41. The Birmingham Hustings
- 42. The Tory Sense of Humour
- 43. Celia Montague
- 44. A Double Game
- 45. Cummings Comes On Board
- 46. Jostling Instincts
- 47. The Top of the Greasy Pole
- 48. Mission Statement
- 49. Lies
- 50. North London Remarks
- 51. Sex
- 52. Over-Promoted Bath Toy
- 53. Labour Pains
- 54. Battle Is Joined
- 55. Johnsonâs Purge
- 56. Margotâs Experience
- 57. After the Rebellion
- 58. Whatâs the Story?
- 59. Danger Good for Liberty
- 60. Younger Brother
- 61. Hercules and Athena
- 62. Supreme Court
- 63. The Dead Parliament
- 64. Charlotte Johnson Wahl
- 65. Vulnerability
- 66. Margaret Thatcher
- 67. Thornton Manor
- 68. The EU Agrees
- 69. The Commons Disagrees
- 70. General Election
- 71. Tory Democracy
- 72. Low Seriousness
- 73. A Disreputable Prime Minister
- 74. Disraeliâs Heir
- 75. Vox Pub in West Bromwich
- 76. Brutal Logic
- 77. The Insignificance of Andrew Neil
- 78. Victory
- 79. Chaos
- 80. Unprepared
- 81. Lockdown!
- 82. Dilyn the Dog
- 83. There Is Such a Thing As Society
- 84. Intensive Care
- 85. Barnard Castle
- 86. Statues
- 87. Car Crash Coming
- 88. Message to School Leavers
- 89. Patronage
- 90. Scotland
- 91. Law Breaking
- 92. Whereâs Boris?
- 93. Boredom
- 94. Bounced
- 95. Lord Lexdenâs Letter
- 96. The Vaccine Cavalry
- 97. Cummings and Goings
- 98. Priti Patel
- 99. Dinner with Von Der Leyen
- 100. Unmerry England
- 101. The Patisserie Department
- 102. The Meaning of Christmas
- 103. Surprise at Bracken House
- 104. Greed
- 105. Jennifer Arcuri
- 106. Hartlepool
- 107. Lord Geidt
- 108. Batley and Spen
- 109. Wedding
- 110. G7 at Carbis Bay
- 111. Levelling Up
- 112. Paranoid and Exhausted
- 113. Afghanistan
- 114. A Junta of Belgian Ticket Inspectors
- 115. Charlotteâs Funeral
- 116. Narcissism at the UN
- 117. Macron Spurned
- 118. COP26
- 119. The âDaily Telegraphâ Dinner
- 120. North Shropshire
- 121. Partygate
- 122. These Tories Are Liars
- 123. Slava Ukraini!
- 124. Arise, Sir Gavin
- 125. Lord Lebedev
- 126. Lord Palmerston
- 127. Fixed Penalty Notice
- 128. The Sue Gray Report
- 129. Negative Capability
- 130. The Johnsonian Nation
- 131. Deepening Peril
- 132. Nobodyâs Perfect
- 133. Confidence Vote
- 134. Downfall
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Bibliography
- Index
- Copyright