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Brexit Boris: From Mayor to Nightmare
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Top positive review
Johnson exposed for what he is
15 July 2017
The cartoon cover might give the impression that this book is a comedic portrayal of Johnson - it is not. This is no lightweight review of the wonderful Boris but a relentless demolition of the publics perception of this rather unpleasant character. Born into privilege and with scant regard for others only himself, this book truly is an eye-opener.
This is an important book. It needs to be widely read so if you buy it pass it on to friends and get them to pass it on.
Read the book - you will then understand.
This is an important book. It needs to be widely read so if you buy it pass it on to friends and get them to pass it on.
Read the book - you will then understand.
6 people found this helpful
Top critical review
A deservedly personal attack, but hardly a political one
30 December 2018
This is a deservedly personal attack, but not much of a political one. Written just before the Brexit Referendum, the late Heathcote Williams (d.2017) shows Johnson's defended venality on many matters, but hardly at all in terms of public policy. The subject had served two terms as London mayor, but if you want insight into how bad his policies were or how unprepared he was for London Assembly meetings, you won't find it here. Equally important, there's no attempt to explain his huge popularity within the Tories' membership and the country at large. In fairness, this was not intended as a real book, but an easy, if concise and welcome smear. The author discredits BJ's (former) mates but then uses their quotes against him anyway! This was republished as BORIS JOHNSON ~ THE BLOND BEAST OF BREXIT ~ A STUDY IN DEPRAVITY (London Review of Books, 2017) and they could have edited the repetition of quotes, but did not.
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Showing 1-10 of 10 reviews
15 July 2017
The cartoon cover might give the impression that this book is a comedic portrayal of Johnson - it is not. This is no lightweight review of the wonderful Boris but a relentless demolition of the publics perception of this rather unpleasant character. Born into privilege and with scant regard for others only himself, this book truly is an eye-opener.
This is an important book. It needs to be widely read so if you buy it pass it on to friends and get them to pass it on.
Read the book - you will then understand.
This is an important book. It needs to be widely read so if you buy it pass it on to friends and get them to pass it on.
Read the book - you will then understand.
7 November 2016
Brexit Boris: From Mayor to Nightmare…
…could be easily inverted from mare to nightmayor – given his braying and whinnying and the alleged part time nature of his mayoralty. But this is mere word play from a reviewer limbering up for a review of Heathcote Williams’ clear and muscular account of the political ascendancy of Boris Johnson. The ladder of chapters thus descends from ‘Bubbles of Dissent and Suspicion’ – down 11 rungs to ‘The Man With No Moral Compass’, as this foreign secretary is foisted onto an incredulous world. I have heard it said that Mrs May’s strategy is one gaff and you’re out mate. Shouldn’t be too long then. Williams charts Johnson’s journey of duplicity and media manipulation with forensic application; a truffling out of lesser know facts like Johnson’s fixing of London traffic light timings to favour the car over the pedestrian - to the better known example of his sacking from The Times at running false copy in the name of his Godfather and his opportunism around the Leave vote. The value of this book is that it brings everything together, under one truth as it were. The writing has a clear flow, as the author, a fine poet and playwrite does not want ‘writerliness’ getting in the way of his account. There’s a blinding fly page, with a Ralph Steadman cartoon, (or splat painting of Johnson as a – splat, underneath which is a quote from Wolf in Pulp Fiction ‘Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character.’ This is profound, and gets to the basic contradiction of B Johnson, in that you can create an edifice of personality, under which there is little substance. In demolishing this character, Williams builds a case to answer. How do people like Johnson and Trump fool so many people? As I read it I wondered about the infantile condition of omnipotence. Within good enough child development, the desperate need to be all powerful falls away during the toddler years as s/he realises that their needs are being met. I’ll let the thought hang in the air – like Bo-Jo on that zipwire.
Jan Woolf
…could be easily inverted from mare to nightmayor – given his braying and whinnying and the alleged part time nature of his mayoralty. But this is mere word play from a reviewer limbering up for a review of Heathcote Williams’ clear and muscular account of the political ascendancy of Boris Johnson. The ladder of chapters thus descends from ‘Bubbles of Dissent and Suspicion’ – down 11 rungs to ‘The Man With No Moral Compass’, as this foreign secretary is foisted onto an incredulous world. I have heard it said that Mrs May’s strategy is one gaff and you’re out mate. Shouldn’t be too long then. Williams charts Johnson’s journey of duplicity and media manipulation with forensic application; a truffling out of lesser know facts like Johnson’s fixing of London traffic light timings to favour the car over the pedestrian - to the better known example of his sacking from The Times at running false copy in the name of his Godfather and his opportunism around the Leave vote. The value of this book is that it brings everything together, under one truth as it were. The writing has a clear flow, as the author, a fine poet and playwrite does not want ‘writerliness’ getting in the way of his account. There’s a blinding fly page, with a Ralph Steadman cartoon, (or splat painting of Johnson as a – splat, underneath which is a quote from Wolf in Pulp Fiction ‘Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character.’ This is profound, and gets to the basic contradiction of B Johnson, in that you can create an edifice of personality, under which there is little substance. In demolishing this character, Williams builds a case to answer. How do people like Johnson and Trump fool so many people? As I read it I wondered about the infantile condition of omnipotence. Within good enough child development, the desperate need to be all powerful falls away during the toddler years as s/he realises that their needs are being met. I’ll let the thought hang in the air – like Bo-Jo on that zipwire.
Jan Woolf
6 November 2016
Read this in one go on a cold night. Had to turn the heating down because I got so worked up and angry. Williams has said this of Boris: “There’s a German word for people like Johnson: Backpfeifengesicht. It means ‘a face that needs to be punched’.” I don't want to get that close to him, but since I have finished this wonderful book I would willingly get close enough to throw it at him. This morning I am calmer. Oh no .. Two days away from other mad Borises These ones with big bombs under their arms. A great read written by someone with great humour about a man whose smirking face masks a dark force.
30 December 2018
This is a deservedly personal attack, but not much of a political one. Written just before the Brexit Referendum, the late Heathcote Williams (d.2017) shows Johnson's defended venality on many matters, but hardly at all in terms of public policy. The subject had served two terms as London mayor, but if you want insight into how bad his policies were or how unprepared he was for London Assembly meetings, you won't find it here. Equally important, there's no attempt to explain his huge popularity within the Tories' membership and the country at large. In fairness, this was not intended as a real book, but an easy, if concise and welcome smear. The author discredits BJ's (former) mates but then uses their quotes against him anyway! This was republished as BORIS JOHNSON ~ THE BLOND BEAST OF BREXIT ~ A STUDY IN DEPRAVITY (London Review of Books, 2017) and they could have edited the repetition of quotes, but did not.
7 November 2016
With one flick of Swiftian magic Williams rips apart the carefully orchestrated public persona of loveable 'Bojo,' people pleaser and all round frothy blonde bombshell who was viewed by many on the Right as the 'fat white hope', a man who would be PM. This book tells another story ,of a cold, ruthless, sovereign egomaniac who is capable of being super nasty with a capital N. Fully illustrated with bitingly savage illustrations from some of Britain's finest cartoonists including Steadman, and Scarfe it is a thumpingly good read and a must for anyone who wants to know more about Boris Johnson than his comical incompetence bonhomie and populist appeal.
11 November 2016
Boris taken to bits until all that is left of him is the hot air with which he continually manages to puff himself up. Just how Johnson has managed to pull his hair over so many eyes for so long is exposed by tales of political intrigue and double dealing. Yes, he's a mendacious 'nasty piece of work' but the extent of his opportunism is truly astonishing. Williams has done a wonderful service by telling this story in such an articulate and comprehensive manner. The lies behind the Brexit campaign and Johnson's major role in their dissemination are laid bare. The terrific cartoons by Steve Bell, Peter Brookes, Dave Brown, Andy Davey, Martin Rowson, Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman all add to the feeling that, at last, Johnson is being well and truly nailed.
9 December 2016
Heathcote Williams is best known for his polemic, ‘investigative poetry’; in Brexit Boris he demonstrates an almost surgical prose style as he unpicks the story of Boris Johnson’s rise to power.
Williams convincingly charts a brutish youth in which the young Boris enthusiastically participates in all that is most cruel and inhumane about the British establishment, both at Eton and Oxford, where he was David Cameron’s peer and fellow member of the idiotic Bullingdon Club where the favoured form of entertainment was hooliganism and mindless violence - stoning a caged fox to death with champagne bottles in the course of a gargantuan dinner, for example.
Williams provokes a hearty dislike for the wily politician whose self-deprecation and bumbling ‘eccentricities’ are revealed as ‘carefully calculated’; a ‘cunning device’ to conceal the real intentions and methods of a clever, shrewd and dangerous man who will shaft anyone to get ahead. Williams cannot conceal his glee that this patron saint of treachery was himself betrayed at the very last minute in the race for the Tory leadership, by Michael Gove.
Possibly the most undiplomatic politician Britain has ever produced, Boris is now the nation’s chief diplomat as we enter the chaotic era of ‘post-truth’ to revisit the fascism of the 1930s.
Along with that other monstrous, xenophobic, sexist, greedy, self-serving, right wing buffoon, Donald Trump, Boris is leading the charge back down the path of progress and into battle against all that is fair and right and decent.
Thanks to Heathcote Williams for making this clear.
Williams convincingly charts a brutish youth in which the young Boris enthusiastically participates in all that is most cruel and inhumane about the British establishment, both at Eton and Oxford, where he was David Cameron’s peer and fellow member of the idiotic Bullingdon Club where the favoured form of entertainment was hooliganism and mindless violence - stoning a caged fox to death with champagne bottles in the course of a gargantuan dinner, for example.
Williams provokes a hearty dislike for the wily politician whose self-deprecation and bumbling ‘eccentricities’ are revealed as ‘carefully calculated’; a ‘cunning device’ to conceal the real intentions and methods of a clever, shrewd and dangerous man who will shaft anyone to get ahead. Williams cannot conceal his glee that this patron saint of treachery was himself betrayed at the very last minute in the race for the Tory leadership, by Michael Gove.
Possibly the most undiplomatic politician Britain has ever produced, Boris is now the nation’s chief diplomat as we enter the chaotic era of ‘post-truth’ to revisit the fascism of the 1930s.
Along with that other monstrous, xenophobic, sexist, greedy, self-serving, right wing buffoon, Donald Trump, Boris is leading the charge back down the path of progress and into battle against all that is fair and right and decent.
Thanks to Heathcote Williams for making this clear.
19 November 2016
It's all here, a career littered with lies and deception, and the only question that remains after reading Heathcote Williams' entertaining demolition of Boris Johnson is how such a political clown could have ever risen to high office and been called "Britain's most popular politician". As for his support for Brexit, Williams quotes close associates of Johnson who say he was never committed to the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, but saw it as a route to his main ambition, held since childhood, to be prime minister. Brilliantly written and illustrated by some of the UK's best cartoonists. Highly recommended.
