For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. A desperate desire to hold court/power over his court. In some way BJ revelled in the chaos of having three different factions within his team, as shown by the story of Carrie and DC. It actually gave him protection and an ability to blame others. Similar to Hitler, who was well aware of the egos/dislike many German generals had for one another. Ultimately he lied to himself. He was a man who could not cope with more than 3 slides of information, which he invariably forgot. The King of the World ended up without a horse and stranded by history.

Johnson at 10, review: Rings with disapproval at Boris’s Johnson at 10, review: Rings with disapproval at Boris’s

The book states that Johnson described his then-fiancee Carrie as “mad and crazy” as he used her as an excuse to avoid confrontations.The third is a moment in which Seldon and Newell analyse one of the elements in Johnson’s downfall. This is what they say: At times reading & re-living some of this was unsettling. It reignited the fury, contempt, disgust & disbelief I felt at the time that a prime minister could behave so badly, lie so enthusiastically and lead so abysmally. I couldn’t understand how someone so clearly incapable (to me!) of effective leadership could become prime minister and this book helped me to understand how this seeming mystery came about.

Johnson’s reign Ten explosive revelations from book on Boris Johnson’s reign

Such has been the pace of modern politics since then, that Johnson at 10 didn’t make it out even for Boris’s immediate successor. Two prime ministers on from him, we now have the authoritative account of what he did with his time in power. That doesn’t make it any more comfortable for Johnson, who unlike Cameron hasn’t retreated for a period of silence in a shepherd’s hut. Instead, it serves as a cautionary reminder for those who are still dreaming of a Terminator-style Boris sequel. 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.Boris was deeply flawed before he even came into power, a self-serving shallow but intelligent man who had the makings of becoming something great, but his small personality came into play. He could have become a good prime minister but this book takes us behind the inner workings of government, goes into all the nooks and crannies and round all the corners to take us to the truth of a poorly selected government, a PM who couldn't stand civil servants and trod them down at every opportunity, he was the main man and nobody else could challenge him. He was incapable of making decisions and waivered all the while so no decisions were being taken when they were desperately needed. An obvious lazy approach/clear avoidance of doing the tough boring work. Implementation, and strategy he avoided at all costs. Boris Johnson and wife Carrie on their final day in Downing Street. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Johnson at 10 review – ducking and diving with the PM who

To the bitter end, he blamed everyone but himself for the implosion of his premiership. The authors are right to dismiss that as another of his fictions. Bad King Boris was dethroned because he was and always had been utterly unfit to wear the crown. Having been fired from every job he has ever done, apart from serving as Mayor of London, did we really expect Boris Johnson to act any differently as PM? Partygate, the most important of the scandals that finished him, was an appropriate nemesis for such a lawless regime.

In case you missed it

This is hardly the first book about Johnson, with plenty of ink being spilled over the politician’s tumultuous childhood and his rise to power, and indeed his downfall. Johnson at 10 wisely summarises the other accounts of his early life, and focuses instead on the psychodrama of his time at the top. A spokesperson for Johnson told the Times, which has serialised the book, that the revelations were “the usual malevolent and sexist twaddle” from the former PM’s enemies. It was interesting to read such an immediate review of Johnson's time at No 10, the conclusion written just over a month ago. There was a lot here that was familiar and anticipated, but also a lot of fascinating detail that fleshes out the picture. Appointing capable senior ministers might have compensated for some of his weaknesses. Johnson deliberately stuffed his cabinets with mediocrities who knew they were expected to be “nodding dogs” and whom he disdained as “the stooges”. “We don’t want young, hungry lions”, an aide recalls him saying when Rishi Sunak proved to be a less pliable and more popular chancellor than Johnson had anticipated. 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.

Johnson’s incompetence Plumbing the depths of Boris Johnson’s incompetence

In another of his roles, Seldon has been tasked with examining how institutional competence and trust might be re-established. He has recently become deputy chair of something called the Commission on the Centre of Government, created by the Institute for Government, which will recommend steps to improve the workings of the Cabinet Office and No 10, post-pandemic and Brexit and Johnson and Cummings. He lied to everyone around him: the authors point out it was more the Court of Henry VIII than a modern functioning government. It also argues that Cummings increasingly cut Johnson out of the decision-making process in his own government. It states that Cummings would tell officials and ministers: “Don’t tell the PM” or “Oh, don’t bother him with this”. The book claims it eventually led to the extraordinary outburst from Johnson: “I am meant to be in control. I am the führer. I’m the king who takes the decisions.” The final chapter was gripping as the administration fell and all Johnson's personal failings caught up with him. Secondly, it refutes the dangerous myth that Boris Johnson was foiled by a remainer establishment, rather than his own incompetence. His former chief of staff Eddie Lister declares that there is “no evidence that the civil service impeded the delivery of Brexit” and the authors conclude that if Johnson didn’t always get what he wanted from Whitehall, that’s because he led it poorly.This is the latest in the long and distinguished series of "immediate" accounts of recent British prime ministers. Anthony Seldon is a fine historian of British politics and the constitution. His judgments of political figures are invariably sound and reasonable. So it is with this account of the turbulent premiership of Boris Johnson. BJ was brilliant at feigning ignorance, sometimes to hide when he actually was ignorant. In Sept 2020, when discussing the trade deal, it was starting to dawn on BJ what leaving the customs union meant. “No no Frosty, what happens with a deal?”. Frost replies “PM this is what happens with a deal, that’s what leaving the customs union means”. (A side point, only in 1820 did the US realise that leaving the British empire was beneficial (they left in 1776)). Who knows, Brexit could be beneficial in 50 years? BJ, as written earlier was a very good chair of meetings when he wanted to. At the G7, he had not read his briefing papers, but still managed to survive and almost thrive. At their best when against something (getting Brexit done, against Russia, against Covid) but never for anything. That extended to his team around him, most of all DC who did not have a clue what levelling up meant. Events have flowed so bizarrely over the past four years that it's easy to become confused. This book is going to be a godsend to people writing about this era because the authors have recorded the views and thoughts of the participants before time and hindsight rewrite them.