Let's not deny our pleasure: Unleashed, Boris Johnson's penned account of his years in power – first as Mayor of London (2008 to 2016), then as prime minister of the UK between 2019 and 2022 – is a very enjoyable read for a political book. The book is packed with anecdotes, incongruous and comical details.

However, the almost 800-page read, written in the first person by the former leader humiliatingly ousted from Downing Street mid-term after the "Partygate" scandal (the parties held in government departments during lockdowns), contains no revelations, mea culpa or reflections on the reasons for his failures.

Johnson, who began his career as a journalist – first at the Times, then at the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, the three main newspapers of opinion on the British right – undeniably knows how to grab the reader's attention. From his legal tussle with "Spiderwoman" Brenda Hale, President of the British Supreme Court (who, while wearing a large spider broach, declared his suspension from Parliament illegal in September 2019) to his family vacation in Canada cut short in the summer of 2011 due to the London riots, the politician multiplies situational settings to avoid an overly chronological narrative.

Lies about Brexit

The ex-Mayor of London, with his characteristic look – shaggy hair, rumpled suit, tired shoes – seems to play his character to the point of caricature. He is always ready to tell a joke, to confess a gaffe, and he takes nothing and nobody seriously, starting with himself. He spared the reader no detail, including the ridiculous episode of the zip line on which he got stuck during the 2012 London Summer Olympics after jumping on it to attract the attention of Brits he did not find enthusiastic enough.

He also had a lot of fun recounting that phone call from Downing Street a few years later, when he was at the urinal in the House of Commons: It was the prime minister, Theresa May, trying to reach him to offer him the post of Foreign Secretary. Reading him, one almost has the impression of hearing him speak: He multiplies exclamations, swerves, and quotes from classical Greek authors, whom he venerates.

Johnson, who resigned from the House of Commons in June 2023 (before being disavowed by the findings of a parliamentary inquiry into "Partygate"), discussed at length Brexit, of which he was a leading advocate. Yet he never questioned why, if all the polls are to be believed, a majority of Britons now disavow divorce from the European Union. The former leader did quote "Frosty," aka David Frost, his negotiator with the Europeans, but it was only to rave about his diplomatic skills.

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