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Journalist Tim Shipman has said that despite Boris Johnson’s ebullient persona, the former prime minister is actually a “loner” who “hates parties”.
The 49-year-old former political editor of The Times spoke at an event promoting his new book No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris, at the Henley Literary Festival which took place at Phyllis Court in Henley-on-Thames on Sunday (6 October).
No Way Out is the last of Shipman’s four-book series chronicling key moments in British political history. The final instalment focuses on Boris Johnson’s role in the Brexit saga, which many blame for dividing the nation.
He undertook over 600 interviews with many government officials, with over 3.5 million words of transcripts, and has interviewed the prime minister himself.
Shipman’s book arrives ahead of the forthcoming release of Johnson’s memoir, Unleashed, which has already been slammed by critics.
Appearing at the Henley event – for which The Independent is the exclusive news partner for a second year– Shipman spoke about the Partygate controversy in the context of the pandemic.
“Boris Johnson hates parties,” Shipman said. “He hates being in a room with people he doesn’t know or having to sort of perform in a private arena.
“He occasionally drinks heavily, but he’s not a perennial heavy drinker. He’s quite a sort of low figure.”
Commenting on the politician’s private life, which has been the subject of as much coverage as his government policies, Shipman said that the perceived chaos of Johnson’s personal relationships is down to his lack of confidence.
“The reason he has all these affairs is because he craves female company,” he said concerning the allegations that Johnson has been unfaithful to his partners. “Because they kind of want to change him or massage him more. There’s kind of a Mother-Lover complex with Boris.”
He went on to say that he believed Johnson’s dynamic was different at work due to the former Tory prime minister’s competitive streak.
“It’s always a sort of process of one-upmanship, and it’s a bit different,” he said of closed meetings between Johnson and his government officials, whom he called a “fairly bleak character”.
Commenting on the frequent comparisons drawn between Johnson and Churchill, Shipman said that although there are similarities between the two politicians, Johnson had ultimately failed to fill Churchill’s shoes.
“They were both regarded as, fickle self-centred figures, glory hunters, people who were prepared to change sides at the drop of a hat for their own purposes,” he explained. “But when tested and in the moment of maximum kind of crisis, Churchill came through and ultimately Johnson kind of didn’t.”
No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris is out now.
