Just boris by sonia purnell
Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition: A Biography of Boris Johnson
November 28, 2012
Inside this fat book there's a (good) thin one struggling to get the one. So much has been written about London's mayor that it's difficult to know where to begin in trying to find out who Just Boris is. Let me make myself plain: I'm not a Tory or Boris voter and am never likely to be, and I'm not won over by his crumbs, I'm a likeable toff persona. But I do admire his almost unwavering ability to garner brilliant publicity whilst achieving little and dodging tough questioning.
I've read the coverage, seen him on telly, tried Andrew Gimson's unsatisfactory hagiography from a few years back: so I came to Sonia Purnell's mighty meaty with high hopes. Some background bio, a robust overview and the key stories were what I was looking for. Did I get it? Yes, and some.
The problem with Just Boris is that there is so much material and so many questions - who, when, why and what the fuck, mainly. Unfortunately in seeking to be comprehensive Purnell fails to edit, or perhaps focus on the really interesting stuff. To get to it, the reader is forced to wade for what feels like years through pages and pages on the 'interesting' Johnson family background (there's a whole village of blond lookylikeys somewhere in the mountains above Ankara apparently), the idiosyncratic family approach to marriage and child rearing, and the Eton/Oxford years. And no, she isn't able to reveal much, try as she might, on whether he ran amuck in the Bullingdon Club. Tiny morsels of 'gosh really?' compete with wodges of frankly indigestible detail, of interest surely to the Nick Robinson type political spod who gets breathlessly excited about turgid Westminster village gossip ('Boris didn't send Dave a christmas card' 'ooooohhhh').
Worse, the lack of editing is betrayed in repetition, which is irksome. We're told two if not three times that Mrs Boris, Marina, prefers 'cheerful practicality' in the family home rather than fashion or elegance, a rather clunking counterpoint to the various cut glass Home Counties types Boris is shagging around with. Simon Heffer, who may be uncomfortably constipated at the loucheness of modern life is, nonetheless, the leading Tory commentator of his generation and doesn't need to be introduced all over again when he makes a second appearance a couple of hundred pages later. The reader has a longer attention span than the average audience of a Channel 4 documentary.
Realistically, the sequence of events we're interested in is Johnson's time at the Sextator/Johnsonator (as it was alternately known, due to the bonktastic regime Boris ran there, and the relentless promotion not just of himself but his nearest and dearest). Then comes Henley with Boris running for MP and running up against the pop-eyed, mean-spirited, suburban, petit bourgeois old women of both sexes (thanks, Simon Hoggart) that comprises the Tory party in the shires. (Henley's thought that it was Marina's fault he'd had affairs.) Finally there's his take on the mayorality, which is where Purnell really comes into her own, arguing that Boris didn't really have a clue what he wanted to do once he got the job, he just wanted it for its own sake.
About 200 pages too long and in sore need of a sub-editor, this is nevertheless the best summation of the man, the myth, the mayor/'mare yet. Its doorstop quality will come invaluable as source material when the definitive history is written, perhaps even by the man himself, as his memory would appear to be rather faulty.
I've read the coverage, seen him on telly, tried Andrew Gimson's unsatisfactory hagiography from a few years back: so I came to Sonia Purnell's mighty meaty with high hopes. Some background bio, a robust overview and the key stories were what I was looking for. Did I get it? Yes, and some.
The problem with Just Boris is that there is so much material and so many questions - who, when, why and what the fuck, mainly. Unfortunately in seeking to be comprehensive Purnell fails to edit, or perhaps focus on the really interesting stuff. To get to it, the reader is forced to wade for what feels like years through pages and pages on the 'interesting' Johnson family background (there's a whole village of blond lookylikeys somewhere in the mountains above Ankara apparently), the idiosyncratic family approach to marriage and child rearing, and the Eton/Oxford years. And no, she isn't able to reveal much, try as she might, on whether he ran amuck in the Bullingdon Club. Tiny morsels of 'gosh really?' compete with wodges of frankly indigestible detail, of interest surely to the Nick Robinson type political spod who gets breathlessly excited about turgid Westminster village gossip ('Boris didn't send Dave a christmas card' 'ooooohhhh').
Worse, the lack of editing is betrayed in repetition, which is irksome. We're told two if not three times that Mrs Boris, Marina, prefers 'cheerful practicality' in the family home rather than fashion or elegance, a rather clunking counterpoint to the various cut glass Home Counties types Boris is shagging around with. Simon Heffer, who may be uncomfortably constipated at the loucheness of modern life is, nonetheless, the leading Tory commentator of his generation and doesn't need to be introduced all over again when he makes a second appearance a couple of hundred pages later. The reader has a longer attention span than the average audience of a Channel 4 documentary.
Realistically, the sequence of events we're interested in is Johnson's time at the Sextator/Johnsonator (as it was alternately known, due to the bonktastic regime Boris ran there, and the relentless promotion not just of himself but his nearest and dearest). Then comes Henley with Boris running for MP and running up against the pop-eyed, mean-spirited, suburban, petit bourgeois old women of both sexes (thanks, Simon Hoggart) that comprises the Tory party in the shires. (Henley's thought that it was Marina's fault he'd had affairs.) Finally there's his take on the mayorality, which is where Purnell really comes into her own, arguing that Boris didn't really have a clue what he wanted to do once he got the job, he just wanted it for its own sake.
About 200 pages too long and in sore need of a sub-editor, this is nevertheless the best summation of the man, the myth, the mayor/'mare yet. Its doorstop quality will come invaluable as source material when the definitive history is written, perhaps even by the man himself, as his memory would appear to be rather faulty.
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