Boris Johnson: The Gambler

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However, he is so clearly sympathetic to "Boris" that it does feel that this skews the overall balance of the book.

What it does show is an institutionalised government which makes us despair when there is so much talent in this country. Bower’s recitation of the failures of, for example, Public Health England is certainly damning of that body, but surely the task of leaders is to get a grip when something is not working.Yet despite his celebrity, decades of media scrutiny, the endless vitriol of his critics and the enduring adoration of his supporters, there is so much we've never understood about Boris - until now.

Revelatory, unsettling and compulsively readable, it is the most timely and indispensable book yet from Britain's leading investigative biographer. He is also able to dive into an amazing amount of detail about particular events, meetings and conversations (literally what was in text messages, what people were eating etc. I am old enough to remember when Tom Bower deserved his self-styled status as scourge of the rich and powerful and Britain’s leading investigative author. It’s very rare that I find a biography so hard to put down that I put away 300 pages in one weekend, but this one hit the spot! More than that, the litany of mis-spelled words : “his principle enemy”; “the principle reason he did X.The man cheats on his wives, he lies, he manipulates, he lets people down, he is an egomaniac concerned only about himself, he will do whatever is necessary to get to the top and can't be trusted. And how the foreign office people do whatever they can to boycott and sabotage their boss, when Johnson is foreign secretary. To escape confiscatory taxation and punitive state control, the most talented of Britain’s wealth creators had fled abroad to earn their fortunes. It shows Boris as the fool he is but also a clever man, a man who suffers depression, has not got much respect for his dad. In Bower’s biographies he is never very forgiving of the main object, and there is a tendency for numerous others to either be the good and competent ones or merit an acerbic sideswipe all of their own.

His self serving, self centred approach to do all to 'help Boris' succour his ambition has led to unimaginable consequences to the people of the UK and the UK itself. There is very little analysis in Bower’s account, and his own prejudices stand in the way of this becoming a masterful reference work. Bower vaguely tries to place the blame of Johnson’s considerable personal failings at the door of an abusive childhood but this theme barely makes it past the introduction as Stanley barely makes an appearance in the narrative.The most egregious chapters relate to Brexit where Bower shows his strongly pro Brexit personal views. Stanley Johnson’s sense of entitlement was fed by his ability repeatedly to fail upward, but he’s hardly alone in this story. There will be far better assessments of Johnson after he leaves Downing Street, and the best ones will offer no apologies or excuses.