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Johnson's memoir has been long-awaited: in January last year, his register of interests revealed he had received a £510,000 advance, well above the £7,674 his successor Liz Truss received for her book 10 Years To Save The West.

Now, finally, we are offered a chance to see the real Johnson with the publication of his tell-all memoir: Unleashed. Instead, what we get is a conventional political autobiography – a long collection of reasons why he was right about everything and why it was so terribly wrong to remove him from office.

In his shameless and predictable 772-page account of events, the former PM forgoes the truth to paint a preposterous picture of himself as a man of destiny, too good for his own good

Boris Johnson's new book, Unleashed, will be released on Thursday. The memoir has been long-awaited: in January last year, his register of interests revealed he had received a £510,000 advance, well above the £7,674 his successor Liz Truss received for her book 10 Years To Save The West.

As a "chastened" Tory Party convened for its conference this week, and the wider country remained mired in the gloom that has enveloped it since Keir Starmer's "loveless victory", excerpts from Boris Johnson's soon-to-be-released memoir provided a "much-needed tonic", said the Daily Mail (which had acquired the serialisation rights).

"All the fancy verbiage in the world cannot disguise the emptiness at the heart of this self-serving, solipsistic book."

By Boris Johnson. Harper; 784 pages; $40. William Collins; £30. I t was 2008, during the global financial crisis. Boris Johnson was mayor of London. The political situ

Unleashed is the title of this memoir, with a picture of Boris looking sexily tousled on the front. So what are we to think except that the author intends us to see him as an animal – one of those apex predators - who’s been let loose finally to tell the world how it was and how he is.

Unleashed’ is the product of his ‘split personality’ and reads like ‘Billy Bunter let loose in Westminster’, writes former home secretary