The Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story

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a b c d Dale, Iain (8 October 2021). "Chapter 147: Sebastian Payne". Iain Dale's Book Club (Podcast). Global . Retrieved 8 October 2021.

Boris Johnson was touted as the saviour of the country and the Conservative Party, obtaining a huge commons majority and finally 'getting Brexit done'. But, within three short years, he was deposed in disgrace and left the country in crisis.The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. 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. The catalogue of horrors overseen by him and his regime are well documented here: trying to change the rules of ministerial conduct for Owen Paterson who was unapologetic in his flouting of them for personal gain, the "partygate" scandals where he and others gleefully broke the COVID rules that they had put in place then repeatedly lied about them to the apparent final straw for his party when he again lied about and sought to protect Chris Pincher ("Pincher by name, pincher by nature" apparently falling from his lips as he joked about this serial sex predator). The fact that it took so long for enough to be enough is appalling, as is the fact that the most odious and fawning apologists for him (Jacob Rees-Mogg et al) never got there at all. Boris Johnson got me into paying more attention to politics when he became Prime Minister in 2019. He uncovered my hidden Conservative views and made me want to learn more about the Party, and it's history. I've always thought he had a charisma about him from when I saw him on Have I Got News For You.

The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. From Sebastian Payne, former Financial Times Whitehall editor and author of Broken Heartlands.

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. Those reasons could be accurate or could be nonsense, but combined they make up almost as much analysis as Payne offers in an entire book. Lots of his analysis also relies on the usual tropes about Johnson and his character, rather than events as they happened. Payne points out that throughout his premiership Johnson was usually absent overseas during key moments of crisis. Out of country and out of touch he was unable to read the atmosphere and react decisively. Payne argues that Johnson was unable to survive the “three P’s” which cumulatively destroyed his premiership: the Paterson affair which dealt a fatal blow to relations with his MPs; partygate, which Johnson tried to brazen out; and finally the Chris Pincher affair which displayed his poor judgement. We 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."