Keystone Press Agency
The release of Boris Johnson’s autobiographical book «Unleashed», which covers his time as Prime Minister, was scheduled for October 10. However, the publishers decided to bait the press with a few juicy excerpts ahead of the official release.
It’s a tradition for British prime ministers to write about their time in office after leaving 10 Downing Street. The British press, never shy of adjectives, has reviewed the work of past prime ministers in much the same way — for fans of British humor.
«Cameron’s book ‘For the Record’ is a kind of mea culpa on stilts. Theresa May’s ‘The Abuse of Power’ isn’t just a stillborn story — it’s practically lethal. And the most absurd topping on the salad is Liz Truss, who was in power for 49 days and wrote ‘Ten Years to Save the West’ — an insane 320 pages. That is 6.5 pages for every day she was Prime Minister. She set a shockingly low bar with her semi-literate text».
Johnson is, after all, a former journalist. Publishers promote his work as unfiltered, compelling, irresistible, and unvarnished. But the problem is that by the end of his premiership, many people — both politicians and the public — deeply despised him for his lies, which ultimately led to his resignation. So how can we trust him? Well, let’s read and see.
First, the former prime minister writes, the queen had been suffering from a rare form of cancer — bone cancer — for at least a year.
«By early summer, she knew she was dying», Johnson writes, «but she was in a fighting mood, determined to hold on. She wanted to fulfill her final duty: to oversee the transfer of power from one government to another and, I suspect, to add another prime minister to her record-breaking list of governments she had outlived». Well, that’s someone who’s lost count.
Next, Boris Johnson recalls the year 2017. At the time, he was the British Foreign Secretary and received the Israeli Prime Minister for a visit. During the meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu excused himself to go to the toilet. It happens to everyone.
«Bibi spent some time there», Johnson writes, «and perhaps it was a coincidence, or perhaps not, but shortly afterwards the security services informed me that a routine check had found bugs in that very bathroom».
In April 2020, Boris Johnson became seriously ill with COVID. He spent several days in intensive care and revealed in the book that on his first night in hospital he was afraid to go to sleep for fear he wouldn’t wake up. The doctor told him there were two possible outcomes: either he would recover, or «we’ll see». At the time, Donald Trump sent his specialists to Britain with American vaccines, and they helped Johnson get back on his feet. But were these vaccines certified in the UK? No one knows. Not even Johnson.
And it’s about vaccines that the book tells its most heartbreaking story. At the time, Britain was facing not only a public health crisis from COVID, but a critical moment in managing the situation, with 230,000 people losing their lives.
Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser to Johnson’s cabinet, recalls the days when the prime minister had to make key decisions about the pandemic. The vaccine shortage was catastrophic.
«Boris, I understand, gave up science at the age of 15 and I hope he’d be the first to admit it’s not one of his strong points», says Vallance. «Watching the Prime Minister try to comprehend the statistics we presented to him was painful. Several times he put his head in his hands and it was clear that his frustration stemmed from not understanding the problem».
The vaccines were developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, but the doses were produced by subcontractors in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. By March 2021, these vaccines had not yet been approved by the European Union, but they were already manufactured and sitting in warehouses in the Netherlands, waiting for the «green light» from the EU. Not only from Brussels, but also from the UK. But then there’s Brexit — they’re no longer part of the EU. So now they’re partly ours, European. And then the complications started.
Boris Johnson came up with a plan: We’ll just send our Tommies to the Netherlands, to that place, what’s it called, Leiden. We’ll seize the vaccines, come back victorious, and inoculate all the British.
Even a high-ranking military officer, Deputy Chief of the British General Staff Doug Chalmers, has been mobilized for this mission.
«We will move in on rigid inflatable boats — the perfect cover for the Dutch canals — storm the warehouses in Leiden (this is part of Chalmers’ plan), take the whole line along the warehouse, take hostages and seize what is ours. Then we’ll retreat through the canals, load the vaccines onto trucks with trailers and head for the Channel», Chalmers laid out.
«But, sir», Chalmers concluded, «it is unlikely that an attack by one NATO country on another would go unnoticed. How do you explain that?»
«Of course, I knew he was right», Johnson writes, «and secretly agreed, but didn’t want to admit it out loud. I understood that it was all nonsense».
Indeed, Boris, this is Unleashed.