Similarly, Bower concedes that Johnson once wrote of “grinning picaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and, for good measure, digs out a line that Johnson’s critics missed: “Some dream of their teeth falling out as they are about to be executed with the scimitar by a beautiful black woman.” But none of this should be understood as evidence of racism
In a statement that neatly encapsulates the ethos of the post-truth era that Johnson’s spell in Brussels anticipated, Telegraph executive Jeremy Deedes insists his correspondent might have been “exaggerating but it was all too good to check. His reports were all correct in spirit if not in detail.”
Bower adopts the Dominic Cummings position that Britain is run by unqualified and useless civil servants and bureaucrats and it’s they, not Johnson, who messed up.
