Boris Johnson: Former Prime Minister of the UK (2019-2022) and ex-Mayor of London, who led the country through Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the start of the Ukraine war. Author of the memoir 'Unleashed'.
What this episode covers
Steven Bartlett interviews Boris Johnson across a wide-ranging two-and-a-half-hour conversation tied to his memoir 'Unleashed'. The first stretch covers his childhood, his mother's OCD and psychiatric hospitalisation, his parents' divorce, and how he turned to work and a comedic persona as self-defense. They then debate the systemic unfairness of elite schooling (Eton) and his 'leveling up' agenda, before a long, combative exchange over Brexit in which Bartlett presses him with economic statistics and Johnson insists he has no regrets. The final third tackles the pandemic: Johnson's slow initial reaction, the lab-leak theory, whether lockdowns even worked, the death of his mother in 2021, and the Partygate scandal, which he reframes as overblown while admitting he mishandled the apologies.
The guest's own work
Unleashed
Boris Johnson
“one of the things I'm trying to do and Unleashed which is unquestionably a a mixture there's a lot of serious argument in it”— Boris Johnson
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Tamiflu
Roche
“we were threatened with the uh with a bird flu um so didn't was a big deal and we we' laid on stocks of Tamiflu which turned out not to be to be necessary”— Boris Johnson
Have I Got News for You
BBC
“much of where you sort of first came to public knowledge was on the TV show have I got news for you”— Steven Bartlett
Big reveals from this episode
- Says David Cameron told him 'I will f*** you up forever' if he backed Leave, while offering him a top-five cabinet job to back Remain.
- Reveals one of his own children immediately told him 'you'll have to come out for leave' the night he decided.
- Confirms via his book that he and Michael Gove never discussed a future Leave-based government because they didn't expect to be in charge.
- States the COVID virus 'almost certainly was a lab accident' resulting from gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
- Asked directly if he regrets Brexit after a barrage of negative economic stats, answers 'not at all, not at all'.
- Concedes the pandemic may 'to a large extent' have followed its natural course regardless of lockdowns.
- Disputes the Partygate narrative, insisting he was fined only for standing at his cabinet-room desk, with no cake, music or dancing.
- States he has eight children and is baffled by public obsession with the number.
Worth remembering
- Roughly 20 of the 57 UK prime ministers (about 35%) were educated at Eton.
- Johnson's family moved house 32 times in 14 years.
- His mother was hospitalised in a psychiatric facility for about eight months when he was 10 years old.
- Johnson attended Eton on a scholarship funded by the legacy of Henry VI.
- Claims the UK vaccinated 45% of adults and nearly 100% of over-80s by March 2021 thanks to post-Brexit regulatory freedom.
- Says London's murder rate was cut by roughly 50% during his time as mayor.
- Johnson says he does not read social media himself, calling it virulent and oppressive for politicians.
- The interview ran about two and a half hours versus the hour Johnson expected.
- Admits he had a rupture with Michael Gove in 2016 but later put him back in the cabinet.