He then proceeded to test his theory on fellow journalist Andrew Roberts who replied, “You’re right, but too modest. “Churchill did possess a titanic ego,” observes Johnson, “but one that was tempered by humour, and irony, and a deep humanity.”Īt one point Johnson cunningly speculates that Churchill likely had a secret syllogism in his head: Britain=greatest empire on earth Churchill=greatest man in British Empire Therefore Churchill=greatest man on earth. And both, frankly, have outsize egos, though Churchill likely trumps there. Both have wonderfully eccentric personalities. Both were gifted journalists before entering politics. And Johnson’s timing is, well, timely as he segues to national politics as a lead-up to his possibly challenging David Cameron’s leadership of the Tory Party.īut is Johnson’s aligning himself with Churchill really that presumptuous? Both are maverick politicians.

Janumarks the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death and Johnson’s book is in part a commemoration of the event, but when it was published in the UK many wiseacres on Fleet Street saw it also as a shameless attempt by London’s mayor to hitch his political wagon to the legacy of The Greatest Englishman Ever (from Boris’s perspective, at least). And the important point is that only he could have done it.” “Churchill matters today because he saved our civilization. At the beginning of The Churchill Factor, he states unequivocally that, if Churchill had not assumed power in 1940, Hitler would have won the Second World War with all the ensuing dire consequences.

It’s a point of view that London’s flamboyant mayor, Boris Johnson, shares as evidenced by his new book on Britain’s wartime leader, Winston Churchill. In the mid-19th century, Thomas Carlyle postulated what came to be known as The Great Man Theory of history, namely that the unfolding human drama is shaped by the actions of supremely talented individuals not by abstract social and economic forces.

The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson