In the eye of the storm A rich account of Britain's political chaos

Tim Shipman’s fourth and final tome covers Johnson to Sunak, via Truss

- ANNE MCELVOY

At the launch of the final part of his magisterial Brexit quartet, author Tim Shipman offered three reasons why differing political groups should read it. The first were those still reeling from the Out result. The second were those who passionately wanted to get Out and blamed everyone else for not making the EU exit after the 2016 referendum work better to the UK’s advantage. The third were the oft-ignored Liberal Democrats, “because there’s a whole chapter about them”.

On his telling — at a length akin to Boccaccio’s Decameron, an account of life under a 14th-century plague — Out covers the period from the advent of Boris Johnson as leader in 2019 to the demise of the Tory government in July 2024, a period encapsulated in the subtitle, “How Brexit got done and the Tories got undone”.

Shipman’s methodical approach as The Sunday Times’ main political chronicler hasn’t changed across his oeuvre, a lively mix of high politics, low gossip and a grab-bag of metaphors: “In a moment of surrealism, which Dali would have baulked at.”

The challenge of a multi-instalment series is that they need main characters to sustain a flow of events which, while they enthralled Westminster at the time, can feel so-whattish afterwards. So the first part of the account focuses heavily on two of these: Johnson himself as he inherits the Tory crown after Theresa May failed to effect a “soft Brexit”, and the influence of erratic sidekick-cum-Svengali Dominic Cummings.