Johnson’s Churchillian posturing couldn’t be further from the truth - Vladimir McTavish

Boris Johnson’s memoir ‘should really be in the children’s section,’ says Vladimir McTavish (Picture: Dan Kitwood)Boris Johnson’s memoir ‘should really be in the children’s section,’ says Vladimir McTavish (Picture: Dan Kitwood)
Boris Johnson’s memoir ‘should really be in the children’s section,’ says Vladimir McTavish (Picture: Dan Kitwood)
As trailed in last week’s column, Boris Johnson’s memoir of his life in politics has been released and is available in most good bookstores. It will also certainly be available in all of the bad ones and second-hand copies will doubtless be on sale in the Oxfam shop before Christmas.

I won’t be buying a copy. The guy doesn’t need my money. He’d already been paid a £5 million advance on the book before he’d even started colouring it in. Much of it has already been trailed on the front pages of the papers, it is already being serialised in the Daily Mail, a newspaper which printed editorials in support of the Nazis in the 1930s. It’s become more right wing since.

I have read a number of reviews of Unleashed. I gather it is full of wild inaccuracies, is repetitive and very badly-written. Aside from all of that it’s quite dull. Just like Boris himself.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It has taken the former prime minister over two years to complete his memoirs, obviously mulling over the first draft, before removing any pieces of truth which may have accidentally crept into the text. It really should be in the children’s section, next to the Mr Men series. Mr Bulls**t goes to Downing Street would be a very apt title.

This is the man who promised, on the side of a bus, that leaving the EU would raise £350 million per day for the National Health Service. However, the only extra money to reach he NHS during his time in office was raised by a 100-year-old war veteran walking up and down his own back garden.

I don’t know how often Johnson mentions Winston Churchill in the book, but quite a lot would be my guess. He is utterly obsessed with Churchill. In fact, he sees himself as some kind of modern day Churchillian figure. How deluded can one man get?

Winston Churchill divides opinion, but one thing that can’t be disputed is that he had good speech writers and he could remember his lines. Now that’s not something anyone is ever going to say about Bojo. “We’re going to send coronavirus packing,” is not really as uplifting as “We will fight them on the beaches,” is it ?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

One thing both men have in common, however, is an inability to separate fact from fiction. Many of the wartime stories about Churchill are from a book about the Second World War written by Churchill himself. And lots of them are completely untrue.

For example, the argument he had in parliament with the woman MP who accused him of being drunk to which he replied, “My dear, you are ugly, but in the morning I’ll be sober and you will still be ugly,” never took place. Churchill even stole the joke from a pre-war WC Fields movie.

Given how much he idolised Churchill, it does seem strange Johnson should agree to his book being serialised in a paper that supported Hitler in the 1930s. I suppose he’s doing it for the money. Anyway, he won’t be getting any money from me. I’d rather support a good cause. I will be scanning the windows of the charity shops in Raeburn Place. I reckon they’ll all have loads of copies in a week or two.

News you can trust since 1873
Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice