Boris Johnson was prone to believing in political conspiracies. Many friends and former advisers attest as much. One wild and unsubstantiated rumour he voiced was that Sunak’s father-in-law, Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy, had Dominic Cummings on a retainer. There is no suggestion it was accurate. Yet ‘Boris believed it to be true’, said the senior Johnson Cabinet minister who relayed the story. The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. From Sebastian Payne, former Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times and author of Broken Heartlands. Payne’s thesis is that these one-off factors – the wrong Brexit policy, the wrong leader (and the charismatic appeal of Boris Johnson, who Gray believes is forging a new politics combining one-nation Toryism and old Labour values) – map on to a deeper problem that should have Labour deeply worried. Structural, economic and societal changes, he writes, have changed the makeup of constituencies such as North East Derbyshire and North West Durham. The old industrial way of life – steel, coal, ships and the rest – inculcated a sense of communal pride and mutual dependency. The Labour party was its political expression. But Payne suggests that this collectivist culture has been replaced in many areas by relatively prosperous commuter belts and more individualistic lifestyles and forms of work. The “Barratt Britain” of private housing estates and comfortable homeowners has crept up on the red wall, and superseded old loyalties in the postindustrial age. Significant parts of Labour’s lost England are becoming more middle-class and therefore more well-disposed to the Conservatives. “Many of the places that voted Conservative for the first time,” Payne writes, “are content, and the dystopian version of society painted by Labour in 2019 was sharply out of kilter with the world they know. This suburban lifestyle is where future elections will be fought.”

Surrounding himself with acolytes meant his messaging was hopeless. In the pandemic, it was always going to be a problem that the rules implemented had a massive impact on a huge number of voters (many not interacting with anybody except those they lived with), whereas those working at No 10 continued in a Covid-existence that was very similar to their pre-Covid existence (even if we exclude the parties from the equation). There was a total failure to understand how the rules they enacted actually affected people, and a total failure to realise how their messaging would go down with voters. One peerage went to a junior aide, 29-year-old Charlotte Owen, who will become the youngest ever life peer to enter the second chamber. There were also eight other names on his peerages list that were rejected by the House of Lords appointments commission. The story is still passed on by Johnson’s allies. However, a Sunak source said Rishi did not get a direct call or text from Murdoch.

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But in Dorries’s Mid Bedfordshire seat on Saturday, while there were mixed views, there was little indication of any groundswell of sympathy for the former PM or support for any form of political return. Wilson makes his observation over lunch with Payne in his local pub. Their conversation is one of countless enlightening discussions in the book, which take place amid various levels of Covid restrictions in art galleries, pubs, cafes and community centres. Payne’s passion and personal engagement with his subject seems to charm many of his interviewees into opening up in fascinating ways. Labour’s crisis in the red wall, and the party’s attempts to resolve it, will shape the future of English politics. This engrossing, warm and insightful work is an indispensable guide to how it came about. What brought him down within six silly months? “The three Ps”. Owen Paterson, who Boris unwisely tried to protect in wake of a lobbying scandal; Partygate, which he brazened through and almost survived; and Chris Pincher, the whip whose wandering hands goosed a government. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

His limited interest in Parliament, while not uncommon for prime ministers, could be an issue too. He had a massive majority in the Commons, but not in the House of Lords. ‘Can’t you just bosh this on?’ an exasperated Johnson would ask Lords Leader Baroness Evans as legislation stalled there. ‘That’s not how it works,’ she would reply. Johnson’s relationship with Tory MPs was contractual – as long as he was an election winner they supported him; when that support collapsed they inevitably decided he had to go. I loathe everything that Boris Johnson is and stands for. Bombastic, narcissistic, arrogant, convinced the rules only apply to others, self serving and utterly convinced he is right as well as being an opportunistic serial liar. It speaks a lot to the current state of political reality that someone like him, and Trump, were able to rise to the top of the power tree in their respective countries. Given that, it is unsurprising that I read this with a great deal of schadenfreude as well as interest in how events unfolded.That may be part of the story. But the alleged “bourgeoisification” of the red wall does not explain why, when Ronnie Campbell and his wife went canvassing in Blyth in 2019, “there were more Labour votes in the posh areas than there were in the council estates”. The true trauma of December 2019 was that Labour lost its emotional rapport with the less well-off. And throughout his road trip, Payne encounters again and again the desire for a restoration of what Phil Wilson – defeated in Tony Blair’s former seat of Sedgefield – describes as “communality”. This surely, rather than aspirational individualism, drove the Brexit revolt among the working class; a desire that places should be able to take charge of their collective destinies again. As Payne points out, Boris Johnson made sure that the Conservative party reaped the electoral rewards of the insurgency. Did Dowden quit to help ease Sunak’s path? He has vehemently denied it and Sunak allies insisted there was no ‘co-ordination’. But Johnson thought otherwise, even then. ‘Rishi will be next,’ Jake Berry, an MP loyal to Johnson, recalled telling the PM. ‘One hundred per cent. They’re working together on it,’ came the response, according to Berry. One former Conservative Party leader, among just a few politicians to have seen the pressures of that job from the inside, said historians would ‘struggle’ to comprehend Johnson’s fall from the biggest Tory Commons majority in 32 years to his resignation as PM. In the deadline-driven world of journalism he had a reputation for filing just under the wire. It was the same in government, as one Number 10 adviser explained: ‘One of Boris’s techniques is where the system leans towards taking decisions early, he will try to leave it as long as possible.’

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were not always rivals. Quite the reverse. For much of his premiership Johnson saw their relationship as one of ‘mentor’ and ‘mentee’, according to one Boris aide. Another said he grew to view Sunak as his natural successor. In meetings with senior journalists the Prime Minister would gush over his Chancellor’s brilliance. During the countless internal debates about pandemic policy that followed, the pair were often of similar mind. But as the crisis eased with the mass rollout of vaccines in early to mid-2021, the focus turned to how to manage the post-pandemic economy. Johnson, with his populist instinct, was a big spender, having vowed to end austerity and seeing pound signs as the easy way out of many political binds. Sunak had a firmer ideological commitment to traditional low-spend, low-debt and ideally low-tax Tory economics, seeing fiscal prudence as the way forward. Photographs and video of Johnson jogging round the grounds of his new Oxfordshire mansion in garish floral shorts, and heading through airports after lucrative overseas speaking engagements, had already underlined his dramatic exit from Westminster politics, even before the privileges committee report was published. A reasonable account of Johnson's fall, as told by a journalist/think tanker/hopeful MP. As a 'first draft of history', it works well as a blow-by-blow account of the events leading up to Johnson's resignation (the postscript, on the leadership election that followed, is weaker).Labour is not expected to try any political antics, such as attempting to make the punishment for Johnson more severe. In fact, Keir Starmer’s team will try to create a contrast with the chaotic Tory civil war by concentrating on its “energy mission” to invest in green technology. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. From Sebastian Payne, Director of Onward and former Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times.

A source close to Johnson said the former prime minister stood by all those he had rewarded with an honour, believing they were “meritorious and will contribute to public service”. Many existing peers have their doubts and worry that his appointments have further damaged the reputation of the second chamber. Sunak and his allies played a part in Johnson’s downfall, but that should not be mistaken for swallowing the narrative – pushed by Team Boris – that his premiership only ended because of SunakWe did change the course of international opinion," believed one insider. A former cabinet minister argued that only Boris could've pulled it off: "He took on the blob" of policy orthodoxy "and won, it was a shame he could not do it on other matters, too." As I had appreciated from a 30000 ft height, there were a lot of issues that finally brought him down, but they all speak to his apparent belief that no rules applied to him and he could act with egregious self interest without suffering any consequences at all. It is fortunate that his party finally came to an end when his party finally had enough of this vile leader. However, I give them no credit since they were the most craven apologists for his shenanigans for far too long and really only decided to call time on him when it became clear he was an electoral liability rather than an asset. This mirrors the cravenness of GOP in regards to Trump although they still haven't broken with him in the US for the most part. With unparalleled access to those who were in the room when key decisions were made, Payne tells of the miscalculations and mistakes that led to Boris’s downfall. This is a gripping and timely look at how power is gained, wielded and lost in Britain today. With unparalleled access to those who were in the room when key decisions were made, Payne tells of the miscalculations and mistakes that led to Boris Johnson’s downfall. This is a gripping and timely look at how power is gained, wielded and lost in Britain today.