“Hasta la Vista, Baby,” Boris Johnson bellowed at the Speaker after his last performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. Cheers and groans greeted the Terminator 2 quote. Boris was most popular for his leaving. So he tells us in his self-serving, but witty and well-written memoir, “Unleashed”. We got our copy at a Bookazine store, one of seven* the Mirchandani family owns in Hong Kong.
A notable example of the Boris wit was displayed in Beijing in 2008. He said in a speech as Mayor of London accepting the Hand-Over of the Olympic Torch that ping pong, perhaps China’s national sport, was invented in England where it was first called Whiff-Whaff. “”There I think you have the essential difference between us (the British) and the rest of the world. The French looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have lunch. We looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play Whiff-Whaff. And I say to the Chinese and I say to the world, Whiff-Whaff is coming home.”
One outstanding excerpt from the book: “When you become foreign secretary, you inherit all kinds of extraordinary things. You become the person whose instructions adorn the opening page of every British passport. You are His Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and you request and require every official in the world, every unshaven border guard, every Kalashnikov-wielding, skunk-smoking sentry at every crossing or barricade on the planet, to permit the bearer to pass by without let or hindrance, in the name of the Crown. You acquire the use of Chevening House in Kent, whose beauty and luxury I scarcely dare describe for fear of provoking paroxysms of jealousy. For the purposes of traveling the world, you acquire the use of 32 Squadron of the RAF, who in those days still flew vintage but serviceable jets, and whose wonderful RAF staff, uniforms pressed like knives, would serve you lavish and ruminative feasts, one hard on the other . . . wherever you were in the world, all with RAF crockery and silver and well-ironed napkins. All the while on every flight, you had the gluttonous pleasure of talking to men and women of the Foreign Office and harvesting their well-stocked minds. . . . It was like being given keys to the tuck shop. It was heaven.”
In Chapter 30, Johnson discussed China and his experiences there. On President Xi’s London visit in 2015, he writes, “We kowtowed so abjectly to Xi, in the organisation of that visit, that we allowed his personal security guard to defeat all the equerries, to elude the royal protection squad and to scramble uninvited into the Golden State Coach**, the first time this had happened in the 260-year history of that vehicle. Her Majesty the Queen, you will be pleased to know, was made of sterner stuff. ‘Get orff’, she said, or words to that effect, and the goon was ejected . . .'”
Johnson is realistic in his assessment of China. “The Chinese engage in systematic industrial espionage and theft. They oppress the Uighur population and Tibet. They are squeezing Hong Kong. We must feel free to point all this out to the Chinese — not least because if we think it, but don’t say it, they will decide we are pathetic. But we would be totally wrong, and mad, to turn our backs on China and start a new Cold War, to cut ourselves off from trade and engagement and the basic business of understanding a fifth of humanity, with all the genius of that population. We must learn to love what there is to love about China — and there is a lot — and deal robustly with what we fear.”
Towards the end of his book Boris describes his last meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. “‘Good morning, Prime Minister’, said the Queen, and as we sat down opposite one another on the blue-greeny sofas I could see at once what Edward (the Queen’s private secretary) meant. She seemed pale and more stooped, and she had dark bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections. But her mind — as Edward has also said — was completely unimpaired by her illness, and from time to time in our conversation she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty. To go and see the Queen for an hour a week, and to pour out your heart was more than a privilege. It was a balm. It was a form of free psychotherapy. It was like being at school and getting taken out to tea by a much loved grandmother.'” As we all know, with saddened hearts, two days later our beloved Queen died.
“Unleashed” is well worth your time reading. At 738 pages, it will take a while, but you will be well rewarded. Don’t be put off by the critics, who carp that it is too self-serving. Skip the boring stuff on Covid — we don’t want to be reminded of those dark days — and Brexit, and get to the wit, erudition and insights.
Alexander Boris de Pfellel Johnson, 60, served as Prime Minister of the UK from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary and Mayor of London. A blue blood, Johnson was educated at Eton and Oxford. A prolific womaniser, he has been married three times, firstly Allegra Mostyn-Owen, then Marina Wheeler and latterly Carrie Symonds. Johnson has had many affairs: With Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt, when he was its Editor, later with Guardian journalist Anna Fazackerley. Then there was Helen McIntyre an arts consultant, and lastly — really? — Jennifer Acurri. Johnson, almost Churchillian as a writer at least, has published 12 books.
*Bookazine, a family-run business, is described as “Hong Kong’s best and friendliest bookstore”. It is a chain with seven stores: Prince’s Building, The Landmark; IFC Mall; Lyndhurst Terrace; Festival Walk; Repulse Bay; Tai Kwan, Central Police Station and Causeway Bay. The management team at Bookazine is led by Shonee Mirchandani. Currently their best sellers are Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo”, “Hong Kong Shifts: Stories from the Streets of Hong Kong”, William Dalrymple’s “The Golden Road”, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”; “Fortune’s Baazar: The Making of Hong Kong”; and of course “Unleashed”.
**As we mourn Queen Elizabeth II, who died two years ago at 96, this makes us angry.
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