He is undoubtedly extremely clever, but his flaws are numerous. Alistair Lexden pointed out some of them in a letter in The Sunday Times on September 20—the first one sent to that paper, following nearly 300 in The Times itself.
Robert Colvile (Comment, Sep 13) claims that Boris Johnson possesses “a brilliant mind”. Johnson’s book on Churchill is littered with factual mistakes. He lauds Roosevelt’s New Deal, but Neville Chamberlain brought Britain out of economic depression in the 1930s far more swiftly .
His knowledge of conservatism seems to be limited to the hackneyed phrase “one nation”, which he repeats endlessly. He appointed himself minister for the Union, but has become a pariah in Scotland. Could there possibly be some hidden brilliance in giving a peerage to Claire Fox, an apologist for the IRA and Slobodan Milosevic?
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords
