We all think we know what happened to Boris Johnson. We think we know what happened to Liz Truss.
Many wanted to believe that Johnson was a liar who believed in one rule for others and another for himself, because they opposed his policy on Brexit and wanted to believe that made him a bad man. The mainstream media certainly made sure that every last ounce of bad publicity was squeezed out of Partygate.
Many believe that Truss crashed the economy, because the media told us so. That she contrived to do this while UK economic growth was topping the G7 in two out of three post-Brexit years can be quietly brushed under the carpet. The left assured us that the economy had been crashed and, unlike the right, they never lie.
So a book aiming to set the record straight is immediately faced with a wall of opposition from powerful people and from general perception. It’s surprising, in the circumstances, that it should make it into print at all.
Then, naturally, it will be read by a lot of people determined to pick holes in it, as well as downvoted by people who haven’t even read it. I mean, who wants to be told that they have been played for fools and that our cherished democracy can be twisted to achieve personal ends, no matter what the public wants?
I cannot claim an open mind. I always suspected that Johnson was brought down by Remainer desire for revenge on the man who personified Brexit. I couldn’t quite work out how they had done it, or how quite so many turkey-like Conservative MPs had been persuaded to vote for Christmas.
I did always think that the Partygate fuss was blown way out of proportion when Currygate was a more serious case of the same sort, and largely ignored. I never expected The Privileges Committee investigation to be unbiased, and was unsurprised when it wasn’t. What I didn’t grasp was that the media would swallow wholesale the nonsense being leaked from Downing Street, or that the leaks themselves were part of an orchestrated programme and not merely random.
“The Plot” makes no pretence of impartiality. Nadine was part of Team Boris, and proud of it. But she was a cabinet minister and in a position to know a great deal more than the average reader, as well as to see the frantic paddling beneath the surface that marked the apparently serene progress of the swan of state.
I found this book an enthralling read. For me, it supplied the missing pieces in a puzzle I couldn’t quite solve.
No doubt others will dismiss it as just another conspiracy theory. And we all know that nine out of ten alleged conspiracies are really just SNAFUs.
On the other hand. We do have to remember that the tenth one really is a conspiracy. And it suits the interests of conspirators if everyone believes that the tenth was just a SNAFU, too.
Many wanted to believe that Johnson was a liar who believed in one rule for others and another for himself, because they opposed his policy on Brexit and wanted to believe that made him a bad man. The mainstream media certainly made sure that every last ounce of bad publicity was squeezed out of Partygate.
Many believe that Truss crashed the economy, because the media told us so. That she contrived to do this while UK economic growth was topping the G7 in two out of three post-Brexit years can be quietly brushed under the carpet. The left assured us that the economy had been crashed and, unlike the right, they never lie.
So a book aiming to set the record straight is immediately faced with a wall of opposition from powerful people and from general perception. It’s surprising, in the circumstances, that it should make it into print at all.
Then, naturally, it will be read by a lot of people determined to pick holes in it, as well as downvoted by people who haven’t even read it. I mean, who wants to be told that they have been played for fools and that our cherished democracy can be twisted to achieve personal ends, no matter what the public wants?
I cannot claim an open mind. I always suspected that Johnson was brought down by Remainer desire for revenge on the man who personified Brexit. I couldn’t quite work out how they had done it, or how quite so many turkey-like Conservative MPs had been persuaded to vote for Christmas.
I did always think that the Partygate fuss was blown way out of proportion when Currygate was a more serious case of the same sort, and largely ignored. I never expected The Privileges Committee investigation to be unbiased, and was unsurprised when it wasn’t. What I didn’t grasp was that the media would swallow wholesale the nonsense being leaked from Downing Street, or that the leaks themselves were part of an orchestrated programme and not merely random.
“The Plot” makes no pretence of impartiality. Nadine was part of Team Boris, and proud of it. But she was a cabinet minister and in a position to know a great deal more than the average reader, as well as to see the frantic paddling beneath the surface that marked the apparently serene progress of the swan of state.
I found this book an enthralling read. For me, it supplied the missing pieces in a puzzle I couldn’t quite solve.
No doubt others will dismiss it as just another conspiracy theory. And we all know that nine out of ten alleged conspiracies are really just SNAFUs.
On the other hand. We do have to remember that the tenth one really is a conspiracy. And it suits the interests of conspirators if everyone believes that the tenth was just a SNAFU, too.
