I read Boris Johnson’s Unleashed, his reportedly underselling but extremely lucrative memoir-cum-manifesto, so you don’t have to. In doing so, I was reminded that his time as Mayor of London, though flawed, had plenty of positives. The book reads as a tragic tale of how Johnson’s relatively successful mayoralty served to springboard him to a supposedly bigger and better job, only for him to discover that it was one to which he was simply not suited. Perhaps accidentally, it is also a great advertisement for the mayoralty itself.
Unleashed contains a great deal that will further infuriate those who view Johnson as a terrible Prime Minister and the awful liar behind Brexit. It contains relatively little detail, several uses of phrases such as “ah well”, and three appearances by the “c-word” – surely an undignified first for a former leader of our great nation.
But it is objectively readable. Johnson is a better writer than speaker, although he did have his moments, particularly when he was Mayor. And the book suggests he enjoyed being Mayor significantly more than any of the other political offices he has held. Ten of the book’s 60 chapters glowingly describe his time running London. Considering this is the memoir of an ex-politician who more recently led country through Brexit, Covid-19 and the invasion of Ukraine, that is quite a chunk.
Johnson’s mayoralty was not inevitable. He admits that he didn’t know Hillingdon from Havering when he first considered running. He claims to have spent a holiday (one of several) reading files full of the press releases of his predecessor Ken Livingstone and marvelling at the sheer scope of the job.
He praises Livingstone, “the five-hundred-pound gorilla of London politics”, for his “sheer political energy and intelligence”. He even expresses admiration for Livingstone’s leadership of the Greater London Council, where he championed then-controversial social causes that have now become mainstream. Despite initial disquiet over his past journalism, Johnson at City Hall embraced London’s diversity. Professor Tony Travers described the atmosphere of his mayoralty as “benign and affable”.
Johnson claimed he initially “liked the sound of the job” primarily because:
“It was basically monarchical. You didn’t have to worry about cabinet mutinies or backbench unrest. You didn’t have to understand the difference between the second and third reading of a bill. You had your powers and your budgets, and you just got good things done.”
It is true that Mayors of London do not have to spend much time managing relations with the equivalent of parliamentary colleagues. British Prime Ministers can be near-instantaneously turfed out of 10 Downing Street if MPs lose faith in their abilities. The London Assembly, by contrast, has limited powers to control Mayors, which perhaps explains why they, including Johnson, can fall into the trap of being impolite to them.
But this does not mean that the mayoralty is not also a complex, challenging and consequential job. Johnson’s first term began in chaos. Unlike both Livingstone and Sadiq Khan he did not arrive at City Hall with a longstanding and loyal team. A series of disasters followed. But he learned, made better appointments, built relationships, and went on to win re-election in 2012. This took serious work, and Johnson is able to point to several achievements whilst at City Hall.
He dedicates entire chapters to knife crime and the built environment. There are legitimate criticisms of the methods used, but knife crime offences eventually did come down, as did the “homicide rate”. Johnson’s mayoralty also undoubtedly saw a significant number of new homes delivered, even if their affordability and quality can be debated. In the shadow of the Global Financial Crisis, Johnson also helped to keep the city’s economy alive and attracting global investment. The Mayor of London can make a tremendous difference to people’s lives.
And this is to say nothing of the enduring changes. Continuing public investment in transport infrastructure was secured from a central government firmly committed to national austerity. The 2012 Olympics were delivered successfully, and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has so far avoided “white elephant” status. Johnson’s personal love affair with the bicycle, the subject of another dedicated chapter, saw a transformation in the capital’s cycling infrastructure.
Johnson’s eye for big projects can be easily derided. He accepts that his New Routemaster buses could have been described as “vanity projects” but claims that the same could be said for the Eiffel Tower (perhaps) and Joseph Bazalgette’s London sewers (hmm). But it is hard to argue that Johnson’s mayoralty has not left a tangible, physical legacy on the city, even if some high-profile projects went undelivered.
The book is a cautionary tale of the dangers of using London’s highly-visible mayoralty as a stepping stone up to supposedly higher office. You can achieve a great deal as Mayor. Equally, a Mayor’s absence, as at the start of the 2011 riots, can be damaging. It is not a job to be sniffed at. Perhaps Johnson should have left it there. And he seems to have taken the wrong lessons from it. “I should have realised how different being prime minister is from being mayor,” he laments, “in that you serve not just at the pleasure of the people but of your colleagues.” There are plenty of other reasons why his premiership ended as it did, of course.
He also acknowledges, in the thank you notes at the book’s end, that he should have made his former deputy mayor Eddie Lister sole Chief of Staff at Downing Street immediately following the 2019 general election. This may well be a dig at former ally Dominic Cummings, who Johnson blames for much of what went wrong towards the end of his premiership. But it is surely also an acknowledgement, whether conscious or otherwise, that his time at City Hall with the capable and affable Lister at his side was truly the peak of his political career.
Jack Brown is lecturer in London Studies at King’s College and author of The London Problem. Follow him on X/Twitter. Image from Boris Johnson X/Twitter feed.
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