Thread by @peterwalker99

I've just read – officially skim-read – 733 pages of Boris Johnson's memoir, Unleashed. Here's a mini-thread of a few thoughts. But as a tl;dr – it's long, often rambling, packed with filler, and shows a complete lack of self-awareness or self-reflection. 1/

The most obviously self-fooling elements are on Partygate and his departure. Johnson insists he did nothing wrong over the parties, and blames Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain for "orchestrating" the issue. He insists he would have won the next election if not deposed 2/

Johnson reels off a series of reasons why he thinks Tory MPs wanted him out, including a desire for change, and that some were "worried I would win" and not give them ministerial posts 3/

Johnson's musings on Chris Pincher, the scandal that finally undid him, are telling. He says he knew all about Pincher's reputation but that he thought his behaviour was "unbecoming rather than bullying or inexcusable". 4/

More widely, other chapters are enormously self-serving and self-focused. The one about Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe should be titled, "Nazanin: why I was the real victim" (he was unfairly blamed and could have got her out of Iran earlier if not blocked) 5/

Similarly, a section on the massive cock-up over A level gradings, which caused huge stress for many thousands of families, is predicated around the inconvenience it caused because he had to cut short a much-needed holiday 5/

As a book rather than a guide to his character, it's also not great. Very long, and with whole parts even his die-hard fans will find a bit of a slog. Do we need a chapter on the new Routemaster bus? One about his views on girls' education? His thoughts about Libya? 6/

Johnson can be an engaging writer, but this feels like being fed about ten years of his Telegraph columns in one go, and it's a bit much. One obvious comparison book – Rory Stewart's Politics on the Edge – is 100x better written 7/

To continue the comparison, while Stewart has his self-excusing moments, his book feels like it's the work of someone who has thought about things - particularly the impact of his actions on others. With Johnson, the rest of the world are mere walk-on characters in his drama 8/

Finally: does Johnson want and hope for a comeback? You bet he does. The penultimate chapter is basically a future policy manifesto, while every other chapter is an explanation of why he was right but was unfairly maligned. end/