Boris Johnson flew to Venezuela in February for unofficial talks with its autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, according to reports. The former prime minister spoke to the Venezuelan president about the war in Ukraine, amid concerns that the socialist republic could supply weapons or military support to Russia, according to the Sunday Times. He also discussed the conditions for normalising relations with the UK, which does not accept the legitimacy of Maduro’s administration. Maduro has been in power for 11 years. Johnson’s office told the Sunday Times that the foreign secretary, David Cameron, was aware of the visit and that Johnson also spoke to Colin Dick, the most senior British diplomat in the country. A Foreign Office source said Johnson notified Lord Cameron of the summit en route, saying: “It was a private visit but Boris texted the foreign secretary on the way.” As it was not an official discussion, permission was neither required nor sought. The talks are unorthodox given the state of bilateral relations and wider uncertainty about western relations with Venezuela, which will hold presidential elections on 28 July. The South American country has the world’s largest oil reserves. It has been a supporter of President Putin and blamed the Russian invasion of [Ukraine](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine) on Nato. Johnson, 59, is understood to have boarded a private jet in February from a family holiday in the Dominican Republic to a location outside Caracas, where he spent less than 24 hours. His spokesperson said: “Boris Johnson met Venezuelan government officials with active support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the knowledge of the foreign secretary, in order to emphasise the need for Venezuela to embrace a proper democratic process. “He repeatedly made clear there can be no hope of normalisation in relations until Venezuela fully embraces democracy and respects the territorial integrity of its neighbours. He also set out the case for the cause of Ukrainian victory to the government of Venezuela.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/09/boris-johnson-held-unofficial-talks-with-president-of-venezuela-in-february#EmailSignup-skip-link-11) Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion The FCDO was contacted for comment. Last month, human rights groups called for the Venezuelan government to halt a crackdown on civil society after it jailed prominent lawyer Rocío San Miguel and then banished a UN human rights office from Caracas for criticising her arrest. “The expulsion of the UN high commissioner and his office is the latest attempt from the government to isolate itself from international scrutiny on its human rights record,” said Valentina Ballesta, Amnesty International’s researcher for South America. “The international community must not give up on shining a spotlight on this issue.” Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials have been accused by the UN human rights council of [committing crimes against humanity](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/22/repression-venezuela-elections-human-rights-groups-maduro-lawyer-arrested-un), including torture, kidnapping and extrajudicial killings.

Labour is doubling down on its claim (see [9.05am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-66600f328f08e941a05392fd#block-66600f328f08e941a05392fd)) that Rishi Sunak lied about its tax plans in the debate last night. **Darren Jones**, the shadow deputy chief secretary to the Treasury, who obtained the Treasury letter confirming that the figure quoted by Sunak was not authorised by civil servants as he claimed (see [9.26am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b#block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b)), said Sunak should apologise. He posted this on X. > In response to my letter, civil servants confirmed they had told Tory ministers they were not allowed to say their dodgy attacks on Labour were independently done by civil servants. Last night Rishi Sunak did it anyway. He lied to the British people. > > He must apologise. > In response to my letter, civil servants confirmed they had told Tory ministers they were not allowed to say their dodgy attacks on Labour were independently done by civil servants.Last night Rishi Sunak did it anyway. He lied to the British people. > > He must apologise. [pic.twitter.com/61bXB1Towu](https://t.co/61bXB1Towu) > > — Darren Jones (@darrenpjones) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/darrenpjones/status/1798275038896120096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) And **Rachel Reeves,** the shadow chancellor, told broadcasters that Sunak lied repeatedly. She said: > Rishi Sunak lied 12 times in the debate last night about Labour’s tax plans. The truth is it’s the Conservatives who have taken the tax burden to the highest it’s been in 70 years. That is the Conservatives’ record and their legacy. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66602f128f08fb1be3410619#block-66602f128f08fb1be3410619) Filters BETA [Key events (13)](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?filterKeyEvents=true#key-events-carousel-mobile)[Rishi Sunak (7)](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?topics=PERSON%3ARishi+Sunak#key-events-carousel-mobile)[Keir Starmer (6)](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?topics=PERSON%3AKeir+Starmer#key-events-carousel-mobile) **Full Fact**, the fact checking organisation, has described the Tory claim that [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) would put up taxes by £2,000 per household as “unreliable”. > The Conservative claim that Labour will raise taxes by £2,000 dominated last night's [#ITVDebate](https://twitter.com/hashtag/ITVDebate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) between [@RishiSunak](https://twitter.com/RishiSunak?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) and [@Keir\_Starmer](https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw). But this figure is unreliable and based on multiple assumptions. > > — Full Fact (@FullFact) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/FullFact/status/1798292499162877993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > The Conservative claim that Labour will raise taxes by £2,000 dominated last night’s [#ITVDebate](https://twitter.com/hashtag/ITVDebate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) between [@RishiSunak](https://twitter.com/RishiSunak?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) and [@Keir\_Starmer](https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw). But this figure is unreliable and based on multiple assumptions. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6660526f8f08e941a053964c#block-6660526f8f08e941a053964c) A [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) government will risk public sector strikes if it fails to increase workers’ pay, the TUC president **Matt Wrack** has warned. **Kiran Stacey** has the story. [ Increase public sector pay or risk strikes, TUC warns Labour ](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/05/increase-public-sector-pay-or-risk-strikes-tuc-warns-labour) [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6660501f8f08043c620338fd#block-6660501f8f08043c620338fd) The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will participate in the seven-party BBC election debate on Friday, the corporation has announced. Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, will represent the Conservative party, and Angela Rayner, the deputy [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) leader, will speak for the official opposition. The Liberal Democrats will be represented by Daisy Cooper, their deputy leader. They will be joined by Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, Carla Denyer, the Green party co-leader, and Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66604c378f08fb1be34107d3#block-66604c378f08fb1be34107d3) **Claire Coutinho**, the energy secretary, was doing interviews on behalf of the government this morning. She repeated the claim the £2,000 per household in extra taxes figure had come from the Treasury – even though its permanent secretary has said that is not correct. (See [9.26am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b#block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b).) She told Times Radio: > This is something which has been signed off by the permanent secretary of the Treasury. And let me tell you, as someone who used to work in the Treasury, they do not sign up to these dodgy figures. > > And it’s really important that the £2,000 of taxes on working families, I thought Keir Starmer was very exposed on that. He could not rule it out. And that’s because that is based on policies that the Labour party .. want to put in place in the next parliament. Coutinho also said the costings were provided by “independent Treasury civil servants”. **Dave Penman**, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, later said it was wrong to describe them as independent. They were impartial, which is different, he said. He also suggested ministers were undermining civil service impartiality. He explained: > The HM Treasury permanent secretary being dragged into this political row for his department simply doing its job is a threat to the impartiality of the civil service which ministers rely on, and have a duty to protect under the ministerial code. > > Civil servants aren’t independent, they serve the government of the day regardless of which party. > > The figures quoted are based on special advisers’ and ministers’ assumptions, which civil servants are then asked to calculate. > > This is not a new phenomenon – civil servants have done so for successive governments and it does not represent an independent civil service assessment. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-666049788f08e941a05395bf#block-666049788f08e941a05395bf) **Anas Sarwar**, the Scottish Labour leader, told Sky News this morning that Labour did not expect Rishi Sunak to lie about its tax plans in the debate last night. Asked why [Keir Starmer](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/keir-starmer) did not mention the Treasury letter saying it was wrong to describe the £2,000 extra in tax per household figure as an official costing for the price of Labour’s plans, even though it was sent to the opposition two days ago, Sarwar replied: > We thought the prime minister would have more integrity than what he showed last night. We didn’t think he was the same ilk as the Liz Truss, the Boris Johnson style politics. But clearly Rishi Sunak wants to go down that same rabbit hole. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day#img-1) Anas Sarwar on Sky News this morning. Photograph: Sky News [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-666047338f08e941a05395a7#block-666047338f08e941a05395a7) **Ed Davey**, the Lib Dem leader, has been fined for speeding after being caught doing 73mph in a 60mph zone on the M1, PA Media reports. PA says: > Details of the case, dealt with under an administrative system called the single justice procedure, were [revealed by the Evening Standard newspaper.](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/sir-ed-davey-lib-dem-speeding-court-conviction-b1162206.html) > > Davey wrote a letter of explanation in which he said he had tried to pay a speeding ticket issued by Bedfordshire police after he was caught speeding on the M1 near Caddington. > > In a “genuine oversight”, he inadvertently failed to provide his driving licence details so the matter was brought before magistrates to consider in March. > > Single justice procedure cases are dealt with via paperwork only, with no in-person court case. > > Davey wrote: “I apologise. The only mitigation for failing to provide my licence details was just being super-busy and failing to read the form fully, having already accepted liability and made arrangements for the payment. > > “Again, I apologise for that. I would like to add that I am the primary driver in a family of four, with two people who have serious mobility issues. > > “My son has a lifelong undiagnosed disability which means he cannot walk – we use a Motability vehicle for him. > > “My wife has MS, and walks very slowly with a stick, though she can drive as necessary. Thank you for any mitigation you feel able to show in my case.” > > He was handed a £72 fine at Luton magistrates’ court, with a £28 victim surcharge, and had three points added to his licence, court staff confirmed. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-666045f58f08043c6203385b#block-666045f58f08043c6203385b) The Tories first raised the claim that Labour would have to raise taxes by £2,000 per family [in a briefing document](https://public.conservatives.com/publicweb/Labour-tax-rises.pdf) published by Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, on Friday 17 May, because the election was announced. The claim is based on [an analysis](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/04/general-election-nigel-farage-conservatives-labour-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-uk-politics-latest?page=with:block-665f8e958f08fb1be34101bc#block-665f8e958f08fb1be34101bc) arguing that there is a £38.5bn gap between what Labour’s policies would cost and what its planned tax rises would raise, and that the party would have to fill this by extra tax rises not as yet announced. The Hunt allegation got some positive coverage in rightwing papers, but until [Rishi Sunak](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/rishi-sunak) started repeating it ad nauseam in the debate last night, it was not really getting frontpage or broadcast headline news treatment. It is now – but that does not make it any more true. Many journalists have been very sceptical about the claim, and there are three main reasons for that. **1) The Tory figure is based on numerous assumptions about how Labour’s policy plans would be implemented, and [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) says many of these are false, or deliberately chosen to make policies look reckless.** The costings come from civil servants, who are neutral, but they are guided by assumptions that come from special advisers, who are Tories. Labour gave extensive examples of these dubious assumptions in a rebuttal document it sent to journalists on the day the Tory dossier was published. It is long, and not available online, and so I can’t quote it in full. But here are five of the questionable assumptions it highlights. \-The Tories say Labour would have to spend £4.5bn over four years on breakfast clubs for schools, but Labour says that in 2017 the Tories themselves said this policy would cost just £60m, and that the Tories are ignoring the fact that number of pupils in primary schools is falling. \-The Tories say Labour would spent £458m on 48 new GP hubs over four years, but Labour says that is not its policy. It would use existing facilities for its new neighbourhood health centres, it says. \-The Tories say Labour would spend £1.9bn over four years hiring 8,500 extra mental health professionals, but Labour says the Tories are assuming these people would get average mental health salaries, not starting level salaries in most cases. \-The Tories says Labour would spend £60m over four years on Ofsted regional improvement teams, but Labour says the Tories are assuming these would cover all schools below outstanding, which is not its policy. \-The Tories says Labour would spend £3.6bn over four years on bus service reform, but Labour says when it allows councils to take over bus services, it will expect them to fund any extra costs from their own resources. It also says the civil servants themselves said “the uncertainty and risk of error is high” in this costing. Labour also says, in relation to many of its policy proposals, the Tory costings ignore savings those policies might produce. **2) The Tory figure includes assumptions that have not been signed off by civil servants.** See [10.08am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-6660254a8f08043c62033693#block-6660254a8f08043c62033693) for details. **3) The Tory figures cover a spending black hole, and the potential tax increases that might be needed to pay for this, over four years.** But when Sunak was quoting the £2,000 figure repeatedly last night, he implied that this was a calculation relating to how much extra tax people might have to pay a year. This was misleading. If he had said people might have to pay an extra £500 a year under Labour, that would still have sounded unwelcome, but less alarming. The Tory headline figure for the black hole in Labour’s plans is £38.5bn. Labour says there is a black hole in Tory plans (mostly generated by its aspiration to abolish employees’ national insurance) and it says this is worth £71bn (of which £46bn is the national insurance plan). But this is an annual figure. As a four-year figure, it would be £284bn. And, using the Tory method of converting a black hole into a tax increase, that would mean families paying around £14,700 more in taxes (over four years). Labour has not been using this figure – presumably because it knows people would not find it credible. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-666033c48f08043c62033739#block-666033c48f08043c62033739) Labour is doubling down on its claim (see [9.05am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-66600f328f08e941a05392fd#block-66600f328f08e941a05392fd)) that Rishi Sunak lied about its tax plans in the debate last night. **Darren Jones**, the shadow deputy chief secretary to the Treasury, who obtained the Treasury letter confirming that the figure quoted by Sunak was not authorised by civil servants as he claimed (see [9.26am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b#block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b)), said Sunak should apologise. He posted this on X. > In response to my letter, civil servants confirmed they had told Tory ministers they were not allowed to say their dodgy attacks on Labour were independently done by civil servants. Last night Rishi Sunak did it anyway. He lied to the British people. > > He must apologise. > In response to my letter, civil servants confirmed they had told Tory ministers they were not allowed to say their dodgy attacks on Labour were independently done by civil servants.Last night Rishi Sunak did it anyway. He lied to the British people. > > He must apologise. [pic.twitter.com/61bXB1Towu](https://t.co/61bXB1Towu) > > — Darren Jones (@darrenpjones) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/darrenpjones/status/1798275038896120096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) And **Rachel Reeves,** the shadow chancellor, told broadcasters that Sunak lied repeatedly. She said: > Rishi Sunak lied 12 times in the debate last night about Labour’s tax plans. The truth is it’s the Conservatives who have taken the tax burden to the highest it’s been in 70 years. That is the Conservatives’ record and their legacy. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66602f128f08fb1be3410619#block-66602f128f08fb1be3410619) Last night **YouGov** released [the results of a snap poll of viewers](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/04/general-election-nigel-farage-conservatives-labour-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-uk-politics-latest?page=with:block-665f83b18f08e941a0538f9b#block-665f83b18f08e941a0538f9b), very soon after the debate finished, suggesting people narrowly thought Rishi Sunak was the winner. This morning **Savanta**, another polling firm, released the results of its poll, which it says was conducted entirely after the debate had finished. It suggests [Keir Starmer](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/keir-starmer) won, with 44% of people saying he did best, and 39% saying Sunak. > 🚨🚨🚨NEW: Starmer beats Sunak in televised debate overnight pollWho won the debate:Starmer (44%)Sunak (39%)Don't Know (17%) > > 1,153 UK adults, 4-5 June [pic.twitter.com/JzHFEI4D9P](https://t.co/JzHFEI4D9P) > > — Savanta UK (@Savanta\_UK) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1798237025038139676?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > NEW: Starmer beats Sunak in televised debate overnight poll Who won the debate: Starmer (44%) Sunak (39%) Don’t Know (17%) > > 1,153 UK adults, 4-5 June > 🚨🚨🚨NEW: Starmer beats Sunak on every major issue and personality-based question in overnight pollWho had best answers to:NHS & public services (Starmer 63%, Sunak 25%)Economy and cost of living (Starmer 52%, Sunak 36%) > > Immigration (Starmer 45%, Sunak 37%) [pic.twitter.com/xUTNHG8riH](https://t.co/xUTNHG8riH) > > — Savanta UK (@Savanta\_UK) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1798239032704717061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > NEW: Starmer beats Sunak on every major issue and personality-based question in overnight poll Who had best answers to: NHS & public services (Starmer 63%, Sunak 25%) Economy and cost of living (Starmer 52%, Sunak 36%) > > Immigration (Starmer 45%, Sunak 37%) > 🚨🚨🚨NEW: Starmer beats Sunak on every major issue and personality-based question in overnight pollWho came across as most honest (Starmer 54%, Sunak 29%)Who gave most thoughtful answers (Starmer 53%, Sunak 35%) > > Who remained the calmest (Starmer 51%, Sunak 36%) [pic.twitter.com/BaL2vFUug2](https://t.co/BaL2vFUug2) > > — Savanta UK (@Savanta\_UK) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1798241264225427534?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > NEW: Starmer beats Sunak on every major issue and personality-based question in overnight poll Who came across as most honest (Starmer 54%, Sunak 29%) Who gave most thoughtful answers (Starmer 53%, Sunak 35%) > > Who remained the calmest (Starmer 51%, Sunak 36%) [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66602f8a8f08e941a053943d#block-66602f8a8f08e941a053943d) Updated at 05.41 EDT  Steven Morris The Welsh first minister, [Vaughan Gething](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/14/labour-vaughan-gething-aims-to-become-first-black-welsh-leader-interview), is facing a political crisis less than three months into office after it emerged he could lose [a no-confidence vote on Wednesday.](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/03/vaughan-gething-scandals-confidence-vote-cardiff) Welsh [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) has revealed that two of its MSs \[members of the senedd\] are ill and if they do not vote to back Gething, he will almost certainly be defeated. Though the vote is non-binding, it will be a huge blow both to his authority and to the UK Labour leadership. Gething’s tenure has been overshadowed by £200,000 in donations for his leadership campaign he took from a company whose [owner, David Neal, was convicted of dumping waste on the Gwent Levels in south Wales.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-22706505) Last month the pressure increased with [the emergence of iMessages with fellow Labour members from the time of the pandemic,](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/08/welsh-first-minister-rejects-covid-inquiry-perjury-claims) when Gething was the Welsh health minister, in which he said he was going to delete a thread, which led to suspicions of decisions being covered up. It got worse when Gething [sacked his minister for social partnership, Hannah Blythyn,](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckv7ve8k82no) suggesting she had leaked the messages, which she denied. Within hours, [Plaid Cymru had ended its cooperation agreement with the Welsh government, making it trickier for the government to operate as it does not have an overall Senedd majority.](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/17/plaid-cymru-ends-cooperation-deal-with-labour-led-welsh-government) The no-confidence debate has been instigated by the Tories but both Plaid and the Lib Dems have said they will back it. At first minister’s questions yesterday, Gething insisted he would win the vote and repeated his assertions that he had broken no rules. But this morning, **Vikki Howells**, the chair of the Labour group of Senedd members, told Radio [Wales](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/wales) Breakfast that two members are currently unwell. Both the Tories and Plaid have refused to “pair”, the informal arrangement under which a member will agree not to vote when a political opponent is ill to maintain the balance of votes. Howells said the decision not to pair showed the vote was a “gimmick designed to undermine our democracy”. **Andrew RT Davies**, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said the Welsh people and Welsh Labour had lost confidence in Gething. “The only person left supporting [Vaughan Gething](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/vaughan-gething) is Keir Starmer,” he said. According to a poll, more than half of the public think Gething is “doing badly” as first minister. About 57% of people think he is doing a bad job at leading Wales, according to a YouGov poll of 1,066 Welsh voters for [ITV](https://www.theguardian.com/business/itv) Cymru Wales and Cardiff University. Just 15% said he was doing well. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66602d218f08e941a053940e#block-66602d218f08e941a053940e) Updated at 05.22 EDT  Jim Waterson Around 4.8m people watched ITV’s first leaders’ debate between [Keir Starmer](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/keir-starmer) and Rishi Sunak on Tuesday night, a healthy figure that is still substantially down on the 6.7m who watched the same event during the 2019 general election. Although the election is of substantial interest to some people, the collective audience for programmes on other channels during the same 9pm timeslot was far larger. This included The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC One (3.1m viewers), England Women’s football on ITV4 (peaked at 1.4m), ITV2’s Love Island (1m), or Channel 5’s Into the Amazon with Robson Green - (400,000). The audience for television debates has steadily declined since they were first held in 2010, reflecting both the lack of novelty and a general audience drift away from live television towards streaming services such as Netflix which don’t feature news content. One of the challenges for broadcasters is fitting their election programming in around coverage of the Euro 2024 football tournament, Glastonbury festival, and Wimbledon tennis championships - all of which are set to dominate the media in the final weeks of the campaign. BBC News’ deputy CEO **Jonathan Munro** [told the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/05/quite-a-nightmare-uk-media-face-tricky-few-weeks-juggling-football-and-politics) the clash with other events was “quite a nightmare” and the broadcaster was operating at “maximum stretch” in terms of what it can cover. Tuesday night’s event was one of only two events featuring the leaders of the two main political parties going head-to-head, with the other due to be hosted by the BBC at the end of the month. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66602bac8f08fb1be34105eb#block-66602bac8f08fb1be34105eb) Updated at 05.12 EDT It is routine for Treasury officials to cost policy proposals from the opposition. MPs can use written parliamentry questions to find out how much government policies might cost, and there is an assumption that it is fair for ministers to do the same with opposition policies. But these exercises always produce figures that are dubious. That is not because people don’t trust Treasury officials to produce fair, impartial costings. It is because, to produce those costings, they have to make assumptions that go beyond the limited information the opposition will have published about its plans, and these assumptions come from special advisers, the political advisers working in the Treasury. They are inclined to make assumptions presenting their opponents’ plans in the worst light. However, this is not the point that James Bowler, the Treasury’s permanent secretary, is making in his letter to Labour. (See [9.26am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?page=with:block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b#block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b).) The Treasury has explained where it is using partisan assumptions [in its costings documents.](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/opposition-policy-costings-2024) Instead, Bowler is pointing out that the Tory £2,000 tax rise claim is based on [a document costing Labour’s policies](https://public.conservatives.com/publicweb/Labour-tax-rises.pdf) that includes figures that have not been signed off by the Treasury at all. Labour has identified three of these in its document rebutting the Tory claims. First, it says the Tories are assuming Labour would spend £2.4bn over four years on a fair pay agreement for social care. It says: “This was included in the Tory dodgy dossier but not in the government costings – meaning that even with spads \[special advisers\] providing the assumptions they could not get officials to sign this off.” It says it is not known yet how much this might cost, because it has not been negotiated. Second, Labour says the Tories are including £2bn being spent on support for Ukraine. It says the Treasury did not approve including this – because it is within the government’s spending plans anyway. And, third, Labour says the Tories are assuming that Labour would only raise £100m a year from extra inheritance tax revenue towards the end of the decade from its crackdown on non-dom status, not the £430m a year Labour claims. The Tories say “HMT figures” show the Labour calculation is wrong. Labour says: “There has been no opposition policy costing published explaining the assumptions behind this figure. This suggests that the [Conservatives](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/conservatives) either don’t have such a figure, have not actually costed Labour’s policy in this area, or they have and the assumptions are such a stretch that they would not stand up to any scrutiny.” These only account for a small proportion of what Labour says are mistakes in the Tory document. I will post more on its main objections to the Tory figures (involving the Tories getting the Treasury to produce costings based on what Labour says are false assumptions) shortly. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6660254a8f08043c62033693#block-6660254a8f08043c62033693) Updated at 05.10 EDT Here is a summary of how the papers covered last night’s debate by **Jonathan Yerushalmy**. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-666024d88f08e941a05393cc#block-666024d88f08e941a05393cc) In the debate last night **Rishi Sunak** claimed that “independent Treasury officials” were behind the claim that Labour would raises taxes for every family by £2,000. He said: > This election is about the future. And I’m clear that I’m going to keep cutting people’s taxes and as we now are. > > You want to put everyone’s taxes up by £2,000 pounds. This is really important. > > Independent Treasury officials who have costed Labour’s policies and they amount to a £2,000 pound tax rise for every working family. > > Mark my words. Labour will raise your taxes. It’s in their DNA – your work your car, your pension. You name it, Labour will tax it. This morning it emerged that **James Bowler**, permanent secretary at the Treasury, has said that this figure should be not presented as an official Treasury one. In a letter to Darren Jones, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Bowler said: > In your letter you highlight that the £38bn figure used in [the Conservative party’s publication](https://public.conservatives.com/publicweb/Labour-tax-rises.pdf) \[the basis for [the £2,000 per household claim](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/04/general-election-nigel-farage-conservatives-labour-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-uk-politics-latest?page=with:block-665f8e958f08fb1be34101bc#block-665f8e958f08fb1be34101bc)\] includes costs provided by the civil service and [published online by HM Treasury](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/opposition-policy-costings-2024). > > I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service. > > I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case. **Henry Zeffman** from the BBC had the scoop. > EXCLUSIVEThe chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service” > > He said he had reminded ministers of this [pic.twitter.com/s00XBfbvAj](https://t.co/s00XBfbvAj) > > — Henry Zeffman (@hzeffman) [June 5, 2024](https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1798252445321343456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) In an interview with LBC **Jonathan Ashworth**, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said this letter showed that Sunak was “lying to the British public” last night. He said: > It has just broken on Twitter, or X as it’s now called, that the permanent secretary of the Treasury wrote to Tory ministers telling them that they could not use these figures, so they have been caught red-handed lying to the British public. > > Every single policy that we put forward in this campaign will be fully costed and will explain where the money is coming from. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b#block-66601b9c8f08043c6203362b) Updated at 04.28 EDT Good morning. We got snap reactions to the ITV debate between Rishi Sunak and [Keir Starmer](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/keir-starmer) late last night, but sometimes the considered reactions are a bit better and there is plenty of time to mull over them today. Election campaigning is relatively light today, because Sunak and Starmer are attending the D-Day commemorations this morning, but there is still plenty to say about the debate, and the news this morning is dominated by the Tories and Labour trying to spin what happened to their advantage. Here is the Guardian’s overnight story. Keir Starmer’s main problem last night was that he was slow, and then a bit cursory, in rebutting Rishi Sunak’s central claim – that Labour would put taxes up by £2,000 for the average family. When this claim was first made last month, Labour produced [a detailed response](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/04/general-election-nigel-farage-conservatives-labour-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-uk-politics-latest?page=with:block-665f8e958f08fb1be34101bc#block-665f8e958f08fb1be34101bc), arguing, fairly convincingly, that the figure was misleading because it was based on multiple assumptions about what Labour actually is proposing. In the debate Starmer (eventually) described the claim as “absolute garbage”. This morning **Jonathan Ashworth**, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, went further. In an interview with the Today programme, he described Sunak as Boris Johnson-style liar. He said: > Rishi Sunak was exposed as desperate last night – desperately lying about Labour’s tax plans, making accusations about Labour’s tax plans which are categorically untrue. > > Labour will not put up income tax, will not put up national insurance, will not put up VAT. > > Rishi Sunak was resorting to lying because he is desperate. And what do desperate people do when in a corner? They lie. > > We saw it with Boris Johnson over the parties in Downing Street in lockdown. And Rishi Sunak has exposed himself as no better and no different than Boris Johnson with his lies last night. I will post more from Ashworth’s interview soon. Here is the agenda for the day. _9.30am:_ Kate Forbes, Scotland’s deputy first minister, campaigns for the SNP in Bathgate and Linlithgow. _Morning:_ [Rishi Sunak](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/rishi-sunak) and Keir Starmer attend the D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth. _3pm:_ Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Romsey. _Around 4pm:_ Members of the Senedd (MSs) debate a motion of no confidence in [Vaughan Gething](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/vaughan-gething), the first minister. The debate will last about an hour. If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on X (Twitter). I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use X; I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. [Share](mailto:?subject=Labour%20says%20Sunak%20should%20apologise%20for%20lying%2012%20times%20about%20its%20tax%20plans%20in%20ITV%20debate%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/05/general-election-labour-conservatives-sunak-boris-johnson-tv-debate-tax-plans-d-day?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66600f328f08e941a05392fd#block-66600f328f08e941a05392fd) Updated at 04.26 EDT

英國將於7月4日舉行大選，屆時下議院的全部650個席位都將改選，保守黨的14年執政也很可能在今夏告終。在未來一個月，端將刊出關於英國政經﹑民生政策的懶人包與梳理現況的數洞欄目，亦將刊出一系列專訪及其他相關專題。請[按此](https://theinitium.com/channel/international-2024-uk-general-election)追蹤「2024 英國大選」系列 ... 端也推出了免費的英國大選新聞信，請[按此](https://c209b4c2.sibforms.com/serve/MUIFABxP8rRw29RSrHEZc528-3L2o5E-Fb7tgYaN9C3LZMLeUwfLNn3JsDA_c7wLLbsPl601bVpUXOXkzofxkLuP7EqRvp8SliLSKcXOIck9HBT9cjHh1bHzyYdnJKBaklv7R9Fc5bUGz7SYDAeDL5SEv0gaIZEqhFqft4IBcUc393x3ezMuex5lgcnu7xltMCkUNFkrE0aXxPzL)訂閱

The former cricketer discusses the ramifications of his decision to speak out about racism at Yorkshire; a reader has developed an intense crush on an unavailable work colleague; Boris Johnson and Brexit weren’t the only reasons Rory Stewart left politics; and Simon Usborne on the destructive impact of bamboo [How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/07/how-to-listen-to-podcasts-everything-you-need-to-know?CMP=podcast-help)

Will Lewis, the [Washington Post](https://www.theguardian.com/media/washington-post) publisher, advised Boris Johnson and senior officials at 10 Downing Street to “clean up” their phones in the midst of a Covid-era political scandal, according to claims by three people familiar with the operations inside No 10 at the time. The advice is alleged to have been given in December 2021 and January 2022 as top officials were under scrutiny for potential violations of pandemic restrictions, a scandal which was known as “Partygate”. The claims suggest Lewis’s advice contradicted an email sent to staff at No 10 in December 2021 which instructed them not to destroy any material that could be relevant to an investigation into the flagrant breaking of Covid lockdown rules by Johnson and officials who worked for him. Sources said they understood they were being advised to remove photos and messages from their phones that could be damaging in any investigations. Lewis, the sources alleged, made some of the requests personally as he was carrying out work as an informal adviser to Johnson from late 2021 to July 2022. Lewis was a member of a so-called “brain trust” of Johnson’s close political allies who were leading an effort – codenamed Operation Save Big Dog – that tried but ultimately failed to salvage Johnson’s premiership. Lewis was awarded a knighthood in 2023 for his political service to the conservative prime minister. The allegations regarding Lewis’s advice relate to a period covered by a civil service investigation and before the Partygate scandal became a police matter. The Metropolitan police [launched its investigation on 25 January 2022](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/25/met-police-investigating-downing-street-parties-cressida-dick-says). [ Washington Post accuses incoming editor of using work of ‘blagger’ ](https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/17/washington-post-accuses-incoming-editor-robert-winnett-of-using-work-of-blagger) A spokesperson for Lewis said: “This story is categorically untrue.” A spokesperson for Johnson told the Guardian: “This story is untrue.” Lewis, 55, was appointed publisher of the Washington Post in November 2023. His future is looking uncertain, however, after a series of damaging stories in US media outlets, including the Washington Post, about his journalistic record and alleged efforts to kill negative stories about him. A recent story in the New York Times reported allegations that Lewis and Robert Winnett, a former colleague of Lewis’s in the UK who was recently appointed to run the newsroom as executive editor, used “fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles” when they worked as journalists in London two decades ago. The article cited a former colleague, the published account of a private investigator and a New York Times analysis of newspaper archives. Neither Lewis nor Winnett responded to questions by the New York Times. In its own article, the Washington Post claimed that Winnett used material from a so-called “blagger” who obtained the information using deception while working as a journalist at the Sunday Times during the 2000s. [](https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/19/will-lewis-washington-post-publisher-boris-johnson-partygate#img-2) The Washington Post Building in Washington DC. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Winnett did not respond to questions from the Post. The Sunday Times said in response to this and previous reports that it “strongly rejected” accusations it had “retained or commissioned any individual to act illegally”. While Lewis’s journalistic record has been re-examined, far less attention has been paid to his brief stint in politics serving the former controversial conservative leader [Boris Johnson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson). The pair reportedly had a work association as well as a friendship, which included Johnson returning to work as a columnist for the [Telegraph in 2008](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/may/15/dailytelegraph.pressandpublishing), when Lewis was editor of the conservative newspaper. Johnson was paid £250,000 a year for the weekly column, and described this payment as “chicken feed”. It was his second salary to his “day job” of mayor of London, for which he was paid £140,000. Lewis’s decision to join Johnson as an informal adviser followed his April 2020 departure from Dow Jones, where he served as publisher of the Wall Street Journal. The adviser role was unpaid, according to reports, and came at an increasingly desperate political moment for Johnson. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/19/will-lewis-washington-post-publisher-boris-johnson-partygate#EmailSignup-skip-link-20) Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion The then prime minister was facing huge pressure from the public and his own political party over his knowledge of partying during lockdowns within No 10. The UK’s most senior civil servant, Simon Case, [stepped down from his role investigating lockdown-breaking parties](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/no-10-inquiry-head-simon-case-accused-of-hosting-own-party-last-december) inside Downing Street after claims emerged he had hosted an event himself over the same period. The [police investigation was launched on 25 January 2022](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/25/met-police-investigating-downing-street-parties-cressida-dick-says) and ultimately led to Johnson being fined for breaching restrictions. Operation Save Big Dog, so called because Johnson referred to himself as Big Dog and his principle private secretary, civil servant Martin Reynolds, as a “loyal labrador”, reportedly involved plans to fire high-profile figures within No 10 that could be blamed for Johnson’s political difficulties. [The operation](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-downing-street-partygate-b1993433.html) and allegations that pressure was being put on staff to delete evidence of lockdown-busting parties were [first reported in January 2022](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/partygate-phones-clean-up-investigation-sue-gray-b1991055.html). Sources claim that they were told to “clean up” their phones of photos and messages related to partying which flew in the face of the lockdown restrictions Britain’s political leaders had imposed on the rest of the country. It was later confirmed that Johnson had knowledge of several events and he was issued with a fixed-penalty notice. Sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the claims, said Lewis made some of those requests to clean up phones personally. The allegations by the sources suggest that Lewis’s advice contradicted an email sent in December 2021 that instructed staff not to destroy any materials that could be pertinent to any potential future investigation. It is unclear if Lewis himself saw the emailed instruction. The disappearance of WhatsApp messages from inside No 10 was separately raised in an unrelated episode. A Covid inquiry in Britain in December 2023 heard from [Penny Mourdant](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/19/penny-mordaunt-boris-johnsons-messages-vanished-from-my-phone), who served as Johnson’s paymaster general during the pandemic, that a series of WhatsApp messages with Johnson had mysteriously disappeared from her phone. She told the inquiry she noticed messages were missing in May 2021 and that she had tried to repeatedly raise the issue with No 10. Johnson himself gave evidence that about 5,000 WhatsApp messages from his old phone, covering the period from January to June 2020, had been impossible to retrieve. He told the inquiry he had not removed any WhatsApp messages from his phone. Lewis has separately faced accusations in court proceedings in Britain that he helped lead a cover-up of [criminal activity by his former employer](https://www.npr.org/2023/12/20/1219570870/washington-post-will-lewis-tabloid-hacking-prince-harry), News Corp, in which millions of potentially damaging emails were deleted that could have exposed more details about the use of hacking by the now defunct News of the World tabloid and the Sun, another News Corp publication. News UK, the British subsidiary of News Corp, has said in response to reports on hacking claims that it has been “paying financial damages to those with proper claims” and that it has made “commercial sense” to agree a settlement in some cases. It has also said the Sun does not accept liability or make any admissions in the disputed claims still going through the civil courts. Lewis has previously denied the allegations and is not a party to the proceedings. British prosecutors decided in December 2015 not to file criminal charges against Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, [saying at the time that there was no evidence that email deletion was undertaken to pervert the course of justice](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/dec/11/no-further-action-against-mirror-over-phone-hacking-cps-says). Lewis reportedly sought to put pressure on Sally Buzbee, the outgoing executive editor at the Washington Post, over the paper’s coverage of the cover-up allegations, according to reports in the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/business/media/washington-post-buzbee-lewis.html) and [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4995105/washington-post-will-lewis-tries-to-kill-story-buzbee). A spokesperson said in a statement: “William did not pressure Ms Buzbee from publishing any stories during her tenure at the Post, including the stories she brought up to him. To suggest otherwise is completely false.”

India and Britain are launching a new technology security initiative expected to boost economic growth and deepen collaboration on critical technologies NEW DELHI -- India and the United Kingdom launched a new technology security initiative expected to boost economic growth and deepen collaboration, the two countries announced during the first official visit to India by the new British foreign secretary. According to the agreement, which was announced late Wednesday, the two countries will work together on crucial technologies, from critical minerals and AI to semiconductors and telecoms. It will also strengthen cooperation on issues like climate, trade, technology and education, according to a statement released by [British Foreign Secretary David Lammy's](https://apnews.com/article/israel-uk-lammy-f88dff6235360a838e9d39a5beefce48) office. “This will mean real action together on the challenges of the future from AI to critical minerals. Together we can unlock mutual growth, boost innovation, jobs and investment," Lammy said. In talks with his counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the two also agreed to boost defense and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, and discussed global issues including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to a statement from the Indian Foreign Ministry. Lammy said his trip to India reflects one of the new government’s top foreign policy priorities: a reset with Europe, both on climate and with [the Global South](https://apnews.com/article/what-is-global-south-19fa68cf8c60061e88d69f6f2270d98b). Britain's new [Labour Party government, which swept the polls](https://apnews.com/video/united-kingdom-government-united-kingdom-government-programs-conservatism-royalty-aaca049bc6934debba87f737cb9f173e) in the July 4 election, says it wants to “reset and relaunch” U.K.-India relations, particularly by restarting formal talks that began in 2022 on a [free trade agreement](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-biden-covid-boris-johnson-047d39a99de6528f40958bc11a3f9f1c) hailed by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a key goal after Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020. Lammy also met with Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and [Prime Minister Narendra Modi](https://apnews.com/article/india-modi-bjp-profile-a89b28e57acee6193eb6faee1d05bb83), who said he welcomed the new technology security initiative. Modi also said India was looking forward to settling on a free trade agreement in a post on social media platform X. The trade deal was aimed at doubling the two countries’ trade from its 2022 level of $50 billion by 2030. Johnson famously promised to have a deal done by Diwali in October of that year. The two countries held 13 rounds of negotiations without a breakthrough before talks were suspended while both nations held 2024 general elections. \_\_\_ Associated Press journalist Jill Lawless contributed from London.

India and Britain are launching a new technology security initiative expected to boost economic growth and deepen collaboration on critical technologies NEW DELHI -- India and the United Kingdom launched a new technology security initiative expected to boost economic growth and deepen collaboration, the two countries announced during the first official visit to India by the new British foreign secretary. According to the agreement, which was announced late Wednesday, the two countries will work together on crucial technologies, from critical minerals and AI to semiconductors and telecoms. It will also strengthen cooperation on issues like climate, trade, technology and education, according to a statement released by [British Foreign Secretary David Lammy's](https://apnews.com/article/israel-uk-lammy-f88dff6235360a838e9d39a5beefce48) office. “This will mean real action together on the challenges of the future from AI to critical minerals. Together we can unlock mutual growth, boost innovation, jobs and investment," Lammy said. In talks with his counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the two also agreed to boost defense and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, and discussed global issues including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to a statement from the Indian Foreign Ministry. Lammy said his trip to India reflects one of the new government’s top foreign policy priorities: a reset with Europe, both on climate and with [the Global South](https://apnews.com/article/what-is-global-south-19fa68cf8c60061e88d69f6f2270d98b). Britain's new [Labour Party government, which swept the polls](https://apnews.com/video/united-kingdom-government-united-kingdom-government-programs-conservatism-royalty-aaca049bc6934debba87f737cb9f173e) in the July 4 election, says it wants to “reset and relaunch” U.K.-India relations, particularly by restarting formal talks that began in 2022 on a [free trade agreement](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-biden-covid-boris-johnson-047d39a99de6528f40958bc11a3f9f1c) hailed by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a key goal after Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020. Lammy also met with Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and [Prime Minister Narendra Modi](https://apnews.com/article/india-modi-bjp-profile-a89b28e57acee6193eb6faee1d05bb83), who said he welcomed the new technology security initiative. Modi also said India was looking forward to settling on a free trade agreement in a post on social media platform X. The trade deal was aimed at doubling the two countries’ trade from its 2022 level of $50 billion by 2030. Johnson famously promised to have a deal done by Diwali in October of that year. The two countries held 13 rounds of negotiations without a breakthrough before talks were suspended while both nations held 2024 general elections. \_\_\_ Associated Press journalist Jill Lawless contributed from London.

2013年10月，時任倫敦市長 Boris Johnson （約翰遜）以香港作為訪華之旅的最終站。他坐專程由倫敦運到香港的新紅色雙層巴士，宣傳巴士環保技術。到達灣仔碼頭，約翰遜被鏡頭重重包圍，任職通訊社的攝影師張子沖在其中，拍下他揮手的一幕。「那時覺得這太普通了。只不過事後回想，原來曾經香港是一個他們會想去 sell 的 market，或者國際上會重視的地方。」張子沖是香港人，他說在賺錢的年代，政要訪港是平常事 ... 後來，2017、18年，中美關係惡化，張子沖發覺訪港政要和政經盛事減少，但緊隨的2019年反修例示威，又把香港帶回聚光燈下。直到近年，疫情和國安法落地後，香港趨「平靜」，影像變「悶」，張子沖更難發掘新聞，行家亦變少。他十多年前加入外媒時，全港有三四間通訊社，每間有一兩位攝影師，現在跌至一位或只請兼職；而且「外國人都走了」，他估計現時通訊社中僅剩一位外國人攝影師

Ten months ago, GB News unveiled a broadcasting coup. Their latest talent signing was a big one: the former prime minister [Boris Johnson was to join the team](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/27/boris-johnson-join-gb-news-presenter) to put his own idiosyncratic spin on the channel’s political coverage and to pay particular attention to analysis of the forthcoming British general election. Eight months after this news broke, there was indeed a general election in Britain, but Johnson had yet to appear at the [GB News](https://www.theguardian.com/media/gb-news) studios, in London’s Paddington Basin. And now, as the end of summer draws near, a spokesperson for the channel is unable to confirm whether Johnson will ever take up his role. Editorial director Michael Booker originally said he was “delighted” to announce that “GB News has got Boris ‘done’!”. In a more serious tone he added: “We are tremendously proud to have him join the GB News family, particularly as we head into a seismic year of politics both here and across the Atlantic.” Johnson was to become a presenter, programme maker and commentator on the “challenger” right-leaning news channel, [launched in June 2021](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/12/gb-news-bringing-us-style-opinionated-tv-news-uk). Last October, Johnson seemed just as enthusiastic about accepting his first major role in television. He said: “GB News is an insurgent channel with a loyal and growing following. I am excited to say I will be joining shortly – and offering my frank opinions on world affairs.” He was also to have presented “a new series showcasing the power of Britain around the world, as well as hosting the occasional special in front of live audiences around the UK”. But his GB News role is now in danger of joining the line-up of Johnson’s recent assignments and commissions, announced with great fanfare, that are endlessly delayed, possibly destined never to emerge. It is now nine years since Johnson was paid an advance figure of £88,000 by UK publishers Hodder & Stoughton and the US firm Riverhead for a study of William Shakespeare, entitled _Shakespeare:_ _The Riddle of Genius_. The intention was to publish in 2016, in time for the 400-year anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Johnson, however, [put the project to one side](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/11/boris-johnson-shakespeare-book-delayed-again-political-diaries) when the chance to lead his country arose in 2019, a decision he said would “[honestly grieve me](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/02/boris-johnson-offered-to-pay-for-help-writing-shakespeare-biography-says-scholar)”. Those yearning for a fresh Johnson tome can console themselves with the fact that a [memoir of his time in No 10](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/16/boris-johnson-to-publish-memoir-like-no-other-of-his-time-as-pm) is set to be published in October. The book, from publisher HarperCollins and secured for an [advance of £510,000](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/26/boris-johnson-may-get-more-taxpayers-money-for-partygate-defence), is expected to follow the convention of such literary parting shots by cannily reaching bookshops while the author’s political legacy is still being hotly debated. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/17/boris-johnson-yet-to-appear-on-gb-news-10-months-after-being-signed-up-as-a-presenter#img-2) Nigel Farage presents his first GB News show in 2019. Photograph: SOPA Images/Getty Images While GB News viewers are left waiting, another media opportunity may arise soon. At the end of last week, Johnson was reported to have been informally approached by his former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi about taking on a [senior international editing role at the](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/12/boris-johnson-telegraph-nadhim-zahawi-bid) _[Daily Telegraph](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/12/boris-johnson-telegraph-nadhim-zahawi-bid)_. Zahawi is thought to be assembling a potential bid for the _Telegraph_ newspapers and their sister magazine, the _Spectator_, and Johnson’s involvement is being used to entice investors, according to Sky News. At the moment Johnson writes a column for the _Daily Mail_, but his links with the _Telegraph_ go right back to his early career as a provocative Brussels correspondent covering shock stories about EU regulations, now acknowledged to have been exaggerated. He has also edited the _Spectator_. GB News is owned by the investment group Legatum, headquartered in Dubai, and the British hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall, a man who was also recently interested in owning the _Telegraph_ package of publications. He is now considered to be one of the ­frontrunners in the bidding for at least the _Spectator_. It was revealed last week that Nigel Farage, one of GB News’s most prominent presenters, is paid [£98,000 a month](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/16/nigel-farage-revealed-to-be-uks-highest-earning-mp) for his role at the station. The broadcast regulator, Ofcom, has found GB News [in breach of its rules](https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/may/20/ofcom-considers-sanction-against-gb-news-for-breaking-impartiality-rules) more than a dozen times since its launch. In March, it found former presenter Dan Wootton had broken guidelines in relation to fairness and privacy, and it is also looking into breaches of impartiality in an [interview with former prime minister Rishi Sunak](https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/may/20/ofcom-considers-sanction-against-gb-news-for-breaking-impartiality-rules). Last autumn, Booker was clear about which former PM he really wanted on his screens. He said he could not “wait to start working with … the most influential prime minister of our generation” on the “hit shows” he would be making. Booker will have to be patient for a bit longer.

Boris Johnson failed to disclose that he met a uranium lobbyist while prime minister before entering into a new business with a controversial Iranian-Canadian uranium entrepreneur, the _Observer_ can reveal. Johnson’s new company [Better Earth Limited](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15327091) also employs Charlotte Owen, a junior aide with just a few years work experience whom he elevated to the House of Lords last year at the age of 29, sparking intense controversy. Transparency campaigners say there appear to be “serious public interest questions to be answered” over the nature and timeline of Johnson’s relationship with his co-director, Amir Adnani, the founder, president and CEO of [Uranium Energy Corp](https://www.uraniumenergy.com/), a US-based mining and exploration company, championed by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Amir Adnani, a Canadian citizen who is the director of a network of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands, incorporated Better Earth in December last year. On 1 May, Companies House filings reveal, “The Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson” was added as a director and [co-chairman](https://x.com/ourbetterearth/status/1785557818751262849). And this summer, Charlotte Owen – now Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge – joined the company to work alongside him as its vice president. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/07/boris-johnson-faces-questions-uranium-business-charlotte-owen-aide#img-2) Amir Adnani, the founder, president and CEO of Uranium Energy Corp. Photograph: Zuma Press/Alamy The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which oversees ex-ministerial appointments, explicitly [warned Johnson in April 2024 that the “broad overlap](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6633c1b91834d96a0aa6d03e/ACOBA_Advice-_Boris_Johnson-_Better_Earth.pdf)” between his roles in office and at Better Earth may entail “unknown risks” because of the lack of transparency over the firm’s clients. A statement from the Cabinet Office noted the potential for a conflict of interests particularly because of “the unknown nature of Better Earth’s clients – specifically that there is a risk of a client engaging in lobbying the UK government.” The committee also told the former prime minister it feared “that you could offer Better Earth unfair access and influence across government”. Acoba was reassured that Johnson “did not meet with, nor did you make any decisions specific to Better Earth during your time in office”. But the _Observer_ can reveal that Johnson met Scott Melbye, the executive vice-president of Uranium [Energy](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/energy) Corp – Adnani’s company – in the House of Commons in May 2022 when he was still prime minister. Adnani’s social media post about the event claimed that Melbye and Johnson spoke about “nuclear power and uranium”. Neither Johnson or Adnani have responded to press inquiries about this encounter or when they first met. The encounter was not recorded in the [prime minister’s official diary.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65007ee91886eb001397722a/Rt_Hon_Boris_Johnson_MP_meetings__April_to_June_2022_.csv/preview) Uranium is the raw ingredient for the enriched uranium needed to fuel nuclear reactors. Just days before leaving office, Johnson announced a £700m investment in the controversial Sizewell C reactor stating the country needed to “Go nuclear, go large!”. At the time, Caroline Lucas, the then Green MP and former party leader, described Sizewell C as “massively costly, achingly slow and carries huge unnecessary risks”. Among those who cheered the Sizewell C investment was Adnani. He excitedly [posted the announcement](https://x.com/AmirAdnani/status/1564636038496018432) on his Twitter account: “Boris Johnson plans to sign off on new £30bn nuclear plant in his final week in power! [#uranium](https://x.com/hashtag/uranium?src=hashtag_click).” [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/07/boris-johnson-faces-questions-uranium-business-charlotte-owen-aide#img-3) Tweet by Amir Adnani at 8:27pm on 3 May 2022. Photograph: @AmirAdnani/X Adnani has appeared at least twice on former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s _War Room_ podcast, and on one occasion told him that his ambition was to achieve “full spectrum energy dominance”. Headquartered in a serviced office building in Sevenoaks, Better Earth describes itself as an “energy transition company”. Its [website](https://www.ourbetterearth.com/), which is currently under construction, says it will “work directly with national governments and regions that are seeking both inward investment and/or to reduce their emissions ahead of 2030”. The apparent lack of transparency extends beyond the nature of the firm’s clients: the company no longer has [a person of significant control registered](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15327091/persons-with-significant-control) at Companies House. The initial filing states that its single share is owned by another company called “Emissions Reduction Corp” registered in Carson City, Nevada. US company searches reveal the firm was [previously called Carbon Royalty Corporation](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/carbon-royalty), a Delaware-based company whose directors include Adnani and Nicole Shanahan, who was until recently Robert F Kennedy Jr’s running mate in his campaign for US president before he endorsed Trump. Delaware is a “dark” jurisdiction but sources suggest Carbon Royalty Corporation has [raised $40m](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/carbon-royalty) since it was incorporated in 2021 and its investors appear “undisclosed”, although this is not illegal. Baroness Margaret Hodge, the former Labour MP who led parliament’s Public Accounts Committee from 2010-2015 said there were “at least four very serious public interest questions” to be answered about the appointment. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/07/boris-johnson-faces-questions-uranium-business-charlotte-owen-aide#EmailSignup-skip-link-17) Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion “What on earth is an ex-prime minister of the United Kingdom doing, working for a company with an opaque structure? In my experience those who choose to have a UK company owned by a foreign entity only do that because they may have something to hide. What is it in this case? Given the sensitivities around nuclear capabilities we should know who he is in business with, where the money is coming from and why he is using a financial structure that appears to hide the beneficial ownership of the company.” Better Earth, Amir Adnani and Boris Johnson declined to respond to the _Observer_’s inquiries about Better Earth’s line of work, funding or any other matters. The appointment also raises further question marks over Johnson’s relationship with Baroness Owen, a previously unknown junior political adviser who had worked for a matter of months with Johnson at Number 10. Her appointment to the Lords, where she took the title Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge in July last year, became the [subject of intense speculation](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/18/honours-row-grows-after-claim-charlotte-owen-worked-as-maternity-cover). With just a few years’ job experience under her belt, she now holds the position for life. In her maiden speech in November last year, she thanked Johnson for “putting a great deal of trust in me”. That trust has now been extended to a senior role in his new company, Better Earth, though her role has also not been widely publicised. She recently [updated her House of Lords page to note](https://members.parliament.uk/member/4990/registeredinterests) that she has a paid position as “Vice President, Better Earth Limited (energy transition company)” though she does not appear on the company’s [website](https://www.ourbetterearth.com/), [X feed](https://x.com/ourbetterearth) or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/better-earthuk_our-chief-operating-officer-chris-skidmore-activity-7191803885466836992-OO6C/) page. [ Former Boris Johnson aide joins Lords as youngest ever life peer ](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/24/former-boris-johnson-aide-joins-lords-youngest-ever-life-peer-charlotte-owen) Owen mentioned climate only briefly in [her maiden speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iokhmUnoxRg) earlier this year, preferring to showcase her interest in technology, and has no previous employment experience in environmental, nuclear, or green issues. She declined to answer any of the _Observer’_s questions about her role. Owen joins two other former Conservative ministers at the firm: Chris Skidmore, who [resigned the whip](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/05/chris-skidmore-resigns-conservative-whip-over-sunaks-oil-and-gas-licence-plan) and the party over Rishi Sunak’s oil and gas plan, [is Better Earth’s COO](https://www.edie.net/chris-skidmore-announces-better-earth-initiative-to-accelerate-climate-policy-initiative/), while [Nigel Adams](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigeladams66/?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2F&originalSubdomain=uk), a Johnson ally and former minister without portfolio, is CEO. There is no suggestion that either Skidmore or Adams were in breach of transparency rules. Before Johnson became a director of Better Earth in May this year, he wrote to Acoba, the government watchdog, alerting them to the appointment. This came during the same period Acoba had accused him of [refusing to answer its questions](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/boris-johnson-refused-to-be-open-with-watchdog-about-hedge-fund-role) about whom he’d met as a consultant on behalf of a hedge fund, Merlyn Advisors, during a trip to Venezuela. The incident led the committee’s chairman, Eric Pickles, to warn that Johnson’s behaviour had proved its rules were “unenforceable”.

Marina Hyde laments the sexist gossip surrounding Charlotte Owen and her relationship to Boris Johnson; Friends writers and producers on the inside story of the iconic TV show; and Janet Jackson talks to Nosheen Iqbal about taking back control [How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/07/how-to-listen-to-podcasts-everything-you-need-to-know?CMP=podcast-help)

Senior Tories have cast doubt on Boris Johnson’s claim that he seriously considered invading the Netherlands to seize vaccines during the pandemic, saying the story had obviously been overblown and reheated to boost sales of his memoirs. The former prime minister says in his new book, _Unleashed_, that he asked senior members of the armed forces about the possibility of [conducting an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/boris-johnson-considered-raid-dutch-warehouse-seize-covid-vaccine) in Leiden in March 2021 in order to get hold of 5m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which he believed the EU did not want to be exported to the UK. Johnson tells how he convened a meeting of military “top brass” in Downing Street to be told how it could be done with the use of RIBs (rigid inflatable boats) that would navigate up canals “under the cover of darkness”. He writes that after being told that it would not be possible to do this “undetected” and that the UK would then have to explain why it was invading a Nato ally, he, too, concluded that the plan was “nuts”. Ministers who worked with Johnson said they believed the plan was never seriously considered and that the former prime minister may have put forward such ideas largely as a joke, knowing he could later make the very most of them in his memoirs. They noted that the supposed plan had never been mentioned by the former PM – or anyone else – in his evidence under oath to the Covid inquiry. One former Tory minister who was very closely involved with the pandemic response told the _Observer_: “These were times of extreme pressure when lots of outlandish proposals were put forward, but the idea that we would invade a European neighbour was never on the table.” Another source said: “He has clearly brought this one out of the bag for his book.” The former foreign office minister Alan Duncan, who was, in effect, Johnson’s deputy when he was foreign secretary, said: “I doubt it was ever a real proposal. But given that things were so serious at that time, even if it were just a flight of fancy it is really rather worrying.” In the latest extract from his memoirs, published in the _Mail on Sunday_ today, Johnson says he believes Covid was man-made in a Chinese laboratory. “The awful thing about the whole Covid catastrophe is that it appears to have been entirely man-made, in all its aspects. It now looks overwhelmingly likely that the mutation was the result of some botched experiment in a Chinese lab. Some scientists were clearly splicing bits of virus together like the witches in Macbeth.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/28/senior-tories-cast-doubt-over-boris-johnsons-plan-to-invade-the-netherlands#EmailSignup-skip-link-10) Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Adapting Shakespeare’s words, he continues: “Eye of bat and toe of frog – and oops, the frisky little critter jumped out of the test tube and started replicating all over the world.” Johnson is expected to earn up to £4m from his memoirs.

The BBC has cancelled a prime-time interview with Boris Johnson after the presenter [Laura Kuenssberg](https://www.theguardian.com/media/laura-kuenssberg) accidentally sent the former prime minister her briefing notes. Kuenssberg [said](https://x.com/bbclaurak/status/1841591658842095718) she sent Johnson the notes “in a message meant for my team”. The former BBC political editor said it was “embarrassing and disappointing”, adding the error meant it was “not right for the interview to go ahead”. Due to be broadcast at 7.30pm on Thursday on BBC One, it was being billed as Johnson’s first major interview since leaving office. He was expected to discuss Brexit, his government’s handling of the Covid pandemic and the [Partygate scandal](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/23/latest-boris-johnson-photos-bring-partygate-scandal-back-into-focus). Other broadcasters and podcasters have offered to do the interview in Kuenssberg’s place amid calls for the BBC to use another journalist. Those volunteering on X to conduct the interview included Sky’s former political editor [Adam Boulton](https://x.com/adamboultonTABB/status/1841600903234933032), Tony Blair’s former director of communications [Alastair Campbell](https://x.com/campbellclaret/status/1841716398235570334), and the Channel 4 News presenters [Cathy Newman](https://x.com/cathynewman/status/1841603441514455206) and [Krishnan Guru-Murthy](https://x.com/krishgm/status/1841602850285039874). Sunder Katwala, the director of the thinktank British Future, also urged the BBC to find a replacement to conduct the interview. “Shouldn’t the BBC just get somebody else to do the interview on Friday or next week?” [he said on X.](https://x.com/sundersays/status/1841593959962853720) Johnson, who was prime minister from 2019 to 2022, [has a memoir, Unleashed](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/28/boris-johnson-writes-partygate-witch-hunt-memoir-unleashed), being published next week. Kuenssberg previously investigated his government in Panorama episode Partygate: Inside the Storm, and looked back at the recent Conservative years in a three-part [BBC](https://www.theguardian.com/media/bbc) Two series called Laura Kuenssberg: State of Chaos. In a post on X on Wednesday evening, Kuenssberg wrote: “While prepping to interview [Boris Johnson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) tomorrow, by mistake I sent our briefing notes to him in a message meant for my team. That obviously means it’s not right for the interview to go ahead. “It’s very frustrating, and there’s no point pretending it’s anything other than embarrassing and disappointing, as there are plenty of important questions to be asked. But red faces aside, honesty is the best policy. See you on Sunday.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/03/bbc-cancels-boris-johnson-interview-laura-kuenssberg-briefing-notes#EmailSignup-skip-link-10) Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion A BBC spokesperson was reported as saying the inadvertent move made the interview “untenable” and that both the BBC and Johnson’s team had agreed to cancel it. A spokesperson for Johnson declined to comment.

Written once their authors have lost power, most prime ministerial memoirs try at some level to be reflective. David Cameron’s begins by confessing that he still has daily anxieties about having called the Brexit referendum. John Major’s starts even more disarmingly, by wondering why he went into politics at all. But [Boris Johnson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) does not do reflective. He never has and he never will. And nor does his new memoir, with its unnerving title, Unleashed. It covers his time as London mayor, Brexit campaigner, foreign secretary and prime minister. But if it is heart-searching and confessions you seek from the pen of Britain’s most iconoclastic prime minister, you can stop now. This is not “the political memoir of the century” as the Daily Mail has been billing it for the past week. Or, if it is, an unrewarding 76 years lie ahead for the publishing industry. Take this passage from the section describing how Johnson felt in April 2020 when he had to be transferred from Downing Street to St Thomas’ hospital suffering from Covid: > It wasn’t just the physical distress; it was the guilt, the political embarrassment of it all. I needed to be _bee-oing-oing_ back on my feet like an india rubber ball. I needed to be out there, leading the country from the front, sorting the PPE, fixing the care homes, driving the quest for a cure. There’s a lot worth parsing there. And plenty that is characteristic of Johnson’s writing more generally. There’s the rubber ball image and the exuberant vocabulary. But then there’s also the sheer dishonesty and the lies. In reality, Johnson was a chronically indecisive prime minister, emphatically not one who led from the front. The PPE wasn’t being sorted at all, either, nor the care homes fixed. His solipsistic admission that he thought going into hospital was an embarrassing look for a leader shows where his instinctive priorities lay. Then there are the political omissions. Johnson records Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warning – rightly – at the outset of the pandemic that the public would expect the government to act, to make rules and to enforce them. Yet listen to the Covid inquiry, and the evidence of what things were really like at the heart of Johnson’s government in 2020 is jaw-dropping. “I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well equipped to run a country,” said the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, in a WhatsApp message. Johnson’s book gives his version of the big episodes. But it dodges the larger issues they raise. The description of what he calls “the whole [Partygate](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/partygate) hoo-ha” is typical. It is full of angry self-righteousness. But his conclusion that he should not have apologised so much over Partygate is strikingly tin-eared. Though Johnson likes to parade the outward signs of his intellect, there is not a philosophical sentence in the entire book. > He regularly uses a cascade of words when a single one would do Yes, he often dresses up his memoir in amusingly image-rich and alliterative language. Donald Trump is “like an orange-hued dirigible exuberantly buoyed aloft by the inexhaustible Primus stove of his own ego”, for example. Kate Bingham did Covid vaccine deals “like a slightly tipsy billionaire at the Grand National”. Oliver Letwin is “the Professor Branestawm of British politics”. And, yes, he regularly uses a cascade of words when a single one would do. “I wanted to create ladders, springboards, trampolines, catapults – anything to help kids with energy and talent,” he writes on his levelling up policy. The freewheeling nature of the memoir is entertaining but becomes irritating for its lack of structure. You will search long and hard to find any other political memoirist who could reflect, after Cameron threatens to “fuck you up for ever” if Johnson opts to back leave in the Brexit campaign: “Did I want to be fucked up? For ever? By a prime minister equipped with all the fucking-up tools available to a modern government, and thousands of fucker-uppers just waiting to do his bidding?” It is important to remember, though, that this has always been Johnson’s way. He uses his wit, appearance and persona to deflect from serious matters and to advance his own cause. His language is a form of collusion with his audience to stand apart from the tough business of governing. As Ed Docx observed in 2021 in these pages, [Johnson has perfected the role of the clown king](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/mar/18/all-hail-the-clown-king-how-boris-johnson-made-it-by-playing-the-fool), whose speech is “not – in truth – eloquent, but rather the caricature of eloquence”. It is the same with this memoir. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/03/unleashed-by-boris-johnson-review-memoirs-of-a-clown#EmailSignup-skip-link-12) Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion That is not to deny that some of his anecdotes are striking. Johnson really does seem to have seriously contemplated a ludicrous armed raid on the Netherlands in order to bring millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Britain. He did almost drown on holiday in Scotland in summer 2020 because he was determined to sit out at sea in an inflatable kayak to avoid the Highland midges. And he comes super-close to implying that Benjamin Netanyahu personally planted a listening device in his private departmental bathroom when Johnson was foreign secretary. Just occasionally, there is an almost casually delivered shaft of self-knowledge. “I am afraid, looking back, that I allowed the wish to be the father to the thought,” he writes. He is talking about Northern Ireland policy at this point, but the insight applies to much else in Johnson’s career, including Brexit, levelling up and his ability to govern. It probably describes his chances of a return to power too. Perhaps this overhyped book is the only memoir of which Johnson is capable. He is not going to change. Anyone wanting more about his time at the top will gain greater insight from a few pages of [Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell’s Johnson at 10](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/24/johnson-at-10-by-anthony-seldon-and-raymond-newell-review-the-great-pretender) than they will from Unleashed’s more than 700 pages. Unleashed to do what? We never learn – and even he may not really know either. Unleashed by Boris Johnson will be published on 10 October by William Collins (£30). To support the Guardian and Observer, preorder your copy at [guardianbookshop.com](https://guardianbookshop.com/unleashed-9780008618209/). Delivery charges may apply

The BBC has cancelled a prime-time interview with Boris Johnson after the presenter Laura Kuenssberg accidentally sent the former prime minister her briefing notes [“in a message meant for my team”](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/03/bbc-cancels-boris-johnson-interview-laura-kuenssberg-briefing-notes). Have you ever made a similar gaffe at work? Did you send a WhatsApp message or email someone wasn’t meant to see? Did you recover from it? Tell us all about it below. Share your experience You can share your own stories of work message gaffes using this form. Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For true anonymity please use our [SecureDrop](https://www.theguardian.com/securedrop) service instead.

1. Johnson’s retelling of the “torrid sort of summer” that ended his premiership is shot through with bewilderment. While he admits to a few mistakes – not least failing to read the findings against disgraced MP Owen Paterson before publicly defending him – he essentially believes MPs were wrong to defenestrate him. When Rishi Sunak resigned as chancellor, “it was worse than a crime, I thought, it was a mistake – both for Rishi and for the party, never mind the country. So it proved.” Johnson’s biggest failing, as he recalls it, was not buttering up Tory MPs enough. “Too often I would go back to the Number Ten flat, tired out, and work into the evening, when I should have been talking to colleagues and keeping them cheerful.” If his colleagues had “stuck together”, he has “no doubt that we would have gone on to win in 2024”. 2. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/03/from-covid-to-kosovo-five-things-we-learned-from-boris-johnsons-memoir#img-2) Boris Johnson (right) at a leaving gathering during Covid in the vestibule of No 10’s press office. Photograph: Cabinet Office/PA Johnson’s account of what he calls this “miserable and wildly inflated affair”, is that on about 15 occasions, officials “briefly slackened the tempo of their work and raised a glass”. A “handful” of times, he joined them. He maintains these events were in line with Covid rules, but that his former chief of staff Dominic Cummings and his director of communications Lee Cain orchestrated a string of “grossly exaggerated” media reports in a deliberate attempt to undermine him. [The pair](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/31/eight-shocking-revelations-from-cummings-and-cain-at-the-covid-inquiry) were, he says, “behind it all”. He believes he could have ridden out the storm, if he had been “far more robust at the time”. Elsewhere, Cummings is barely mentioned: the “trivial row” that resulted in Sajid Javid’s resignation in February 2020 was, Johnson says, “confected by people who really didn’t have my interests at heart”. The internecine wrangle that resulted in Cummings’ and Cain’s departures, in November 2020, he describes as, “handbags”. 3. The chapters on Covid are the most painstaking and amount to Johnson’s justification of his decision-making at every stage. He shook hands with staff when visiting Covid patients at the Royal Free hospital because “shaking hands is an ancient human gesture of goodwill” and he didn’t want to spread undue alarm. He stresses the patchy information available in the early days, including the false idea that asymptomatic transmission was unlikely. A moment of epiphany appears to have been when he watched footage of overwhelmed Italian hospitals – which he knew were generally good, because he had used them when his toddler fell in the pool on holiday in Umbria. There is no acknowledgment that the government could, or should, have moved faster to remove “ancient and hallowed liberties from the people”, as he puts it. 4. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/03/from-covid-to-kosovo-five-things-we-learned-from-boris-johnsons-memoir#img-3) Boris Johnson attends an event at the Crossrail train construction site at Bond Street when he was London mayor in February 2016. Photograph: Richard Pohle/AFP/Getty While he would never use the term, Johnson clearly believes, along with the economist John Maynard Keynes, that a good dose of government spending can help the economy weather hard times. After the 2008 banking crisis, as mayor of London, he describes throwing his weight behind Crossrail to prevent George Osborne eyeing it up for cuts when the Tory coalition came to power in 2010. “Those big investments – Crossrail, the Olympic site, the Westfield Centre at Shepherd’s Bush – were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programmes that kept the spades going into the ground and people in work.” Never a fan of “austerity”, he repeatedly praises infrastructure projects, particularly in transport. As Covid abated, he says, “we had to use this terrifying moment to our advantage … by driving on full-pelt with our investments in everything from HS2 to hospitals to broadband.” He deplores Sunak’s subsequent decision to cancel much of HS2. 5. While you may have picked up the book to read about the drama of Brexit or the shame of Partygate, Johnson wants you to know that he has considered weighty geopolitical matters. There are chapters on Kosovo, where he was reporting for the Telegraph when Nato troops rolled in, the invasion of Iraq (“an arrogant, conceited and misbegotten adventure”), Libya and Syria, where we “really thumped Assad” when Johnson was foreign secretary – which he suggests was the most that the west could have done in the circumstances. He repeatedly rejects the idea that Brexit has made the UK more insular, insisting that his travels as foreign secretary and prime minister convinced him that many countries around the world, “wanted more Britain, especially in the places where Britain was already well known”.

Boris Johnson has called for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European convention on human rights, a move likely to increase pressure on those vying for the [Conservative leadership](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/conservative-leadership) to follow suit. The former prime minister told the Daily Telegraph there was a “strong case” for a vote on the ECHR, which some Tories blame for hampering their efforts to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Johnson, who is promoting his memoir, remains popular with many Conservative members, who will soon vote for the next party leader. Robert Jenrick, a frontrunner, is the only candidate to promise to take Britain out of the ECHR. Johnson, asked if he would support a referendum on the ECHR, [told the newspaper](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/03/boris-johnson-uk-needs-referendum-on-echr/): “I would. I think it has changed. It has become much more legally adventurist. It’s trying to second guess what national jurisdiction should do.” He added: “There’s a strong case for a proper referendum, a proper discussion about it because I’m not certain that it actually provides people with protections that they wouldn’t otherwise have.” Britain’s membership of the convention has become one of the most hotly contested issues in the Tory leadership battle. Some [Conservatives](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/conservatives) have blamed the court in Strasbourg, which interprets the convention, for the previous government’s failure to implement the Rwanda deportation scheme, even though it was blocked by the UK supreme court. While Jenrick, the former immigration minister, argues the UK cannot have an effective migration policy while a member, his rivals have accused him of offering an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem. Speaking at this week’s Conservative party conference in Birmingham, Tom Tugendhat, one of the other three candidates, argued: “This is about visas, not about foreign courts.” Johnson also told the Telegraph that while he was foreign secretary, a listening device was found in his private bathroom after it had been used by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. He added the timing “may or may not be a coincidence”. The former prime minister is also under pressure to explain his role in [the deal](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/britain-to-return-chagos-islands-to-mauritius-ending-years-of-dispute) ceding control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The agreement was announced on Thursday by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, but Labour sources have pointed out that negotiations began under the previous Conservative government. Sources close to James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary and Tory leadership candidate, on Thursday reportedly blamed the former prime minister Liz Truss for starting the talks. But a spokesperson for Truss sought to highlight Johnson’s role. “It was Boris Johnson who asked Liz to talk to \[the Mauritian\] prime minister Jugnaut about this at Cop26, which she did,” [the spokesperson said](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/diego-garcia-airbase-liz-truss-boris-johnson-b2623626.html). “But she was absolutely clear that we would and should never cede the territory.” Johnson will be interviewed on Friday night by ITV’s Tom Bradby, after a similar interview on the BBC was cancelled after the interviewer, Laura Kuenssberg, mistakenly emailed Johnson her briefing notes.

Keir Starmer has defended [giving up UK control of the Chagos Islands](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/britain-to-return-chagos-islands-to-mauritius-ending-years-of-dispute), as the decision has descended into a political blame game among Conservative leadership candidates. The prime minister said the agreement with [Mauritius](https://www.theguardian.com/world/mauritius) over the islands would secure the long-term future of a joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, which he deemed as the “single most important thing”. Critics of the deal have said it could allow China to gain a military foothold in the Indian Ocean and concerns were raised about the future of other British overseas territories. While Labour signed off on the final decision, it was the [Conservatives](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/conservatives) who first indicated that the UK was open to negotiations with Mauritius, the discussions having being launched under Liz Truss. The then foreign secretary and now [Conservative leadership candidate James Cleverly](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/02/james-cleverly-conservative-leadership-bid-tories) opened the talks saying he had hoped to have them concluded by the end of 2023. Labour’s decision appears to have created a split within Cleverly’s leadership campaign, with the former MP Grant Shapps, who is Cleverly’s campaign chair, noting he blocked the deal. Shapps said on X: “As defence secretary I was so concerned about the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands that I blocked the deal from proceeding. Today, this government has announced it’s abandoned our sovereignty of the archipelago, including the militarily essential Diego Garcia.” The former Tory prime minister Boris Johnson said it was “crazy” to give up control of the Chagos Islands. He told GB News: “Why are we doing this? Sheer political correctness, desire to look like the good guys, desire to look as though we’re unbundling the last relics of our empire. “It’s nonsense. It’s a bad idea in hard geopolitical terms, because the base in Diego Garcia is of huge strategic importance for the US, for the west, and it’s a key component of the Anglo-American alliance. It’s one of the things we bring to the table, has been for decades.” [ A timeline of the UK’s history with the Chagos Islands ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/timeline-uk-history-chagos-islands-mauritius) Truss’s spokesperson, however, blamed Johnson for the decision. “It was [Boris Johnson](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/boris-johnson-memoir-unleashed-secrets-b2623305.html) who asked Liz to talk to \[the Mauritius prime minister Pravind Jugnauth\] about this at Cop26, which she did. But she was absolutely clear that we would and should never cede the territory.” Cleverly’s leadership rival Tom Tugendhat criticised his colleagues’ role in the process, saying it was “disgraceful that these negotiations started under our watch”. Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s special envoy for negotiations between the UK and Mauritius who brokered the deal, rejected the “silly” Tory criticism, noting Cleverly had “enthusiastically” led the talks not long ago. When the prime minister was asked to guarantee that no other British overseas territories would be signed away under Labour, he told reporters: “The single most important thing was ensuring that we had a secure base, the joint US-UK base; hugely important to the US, hugely important to us. “We’ve now secured that and that is why you saw such warm words from the US yesterday.” The agreement over the continued UK-US military presence on Diego Garcia is expected to run for 99 years with an option to renew, with Britain paying an annual sum of money.

Sky News has pulled out of an interview with [Boris Johnson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) after its political editor was told she could not make an audio recording or transcript of the talk. The former prime minister had promised to “reveal what really happened during my time as \[London\] mayor, foreign secretary and PM” during the conversation next week as he promotes his [memoir Unleashed](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/03/unleashed-by-boris-johnson-review-memoirs-of-a-clown). Johnson’s interview with the BBC was dropped earlier this week after the presenter [Laura Kuenssberg mistakenly sent him her briefing notes](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/03/bbc-cancels-boris-johnson-interview-laura-kuenssberg-briefing-notes). In a [post on X](https://x.com/BethRigby/status/1842251904681742660) on Friday, Beth Rigby said: “I was looking forward to interviewing Boris Johnson at Cheltenham but regrettably I can’t go ahead with the event because I am not allowed \[to\] make an audio recording or transcript of the interview. “As a journalist in conversation with a former PM at a public event, I can only proceed if we do it on the record. I’m sorry to have to pull out.” On Wednesday, Kuenssberg said she had sent Johnson the notes for her interview “in a message meant for my team”, and cancelled the discussion with the former Conservative party leader. The BBC’s former political editor said the error was “embarrassing and disappointing”, and meant it was “not right for the interview to go ahead”. In an interview with ITV News broadcast on Friday night, Johnson said he regretted apologising over his government’s lockdown parties in Downing Street in 2020. In his memoir, he wrote that he made a “mistake” issuing “pathetic” and “grovelling” apologies over partygate, which he said “made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were”. Tom Bradby, who presents ITV News at Ten, asked Johnson: “You basically say: ‘It wasn’t a big deal. I regret apologising.’ Is that really your position? Did you regret apologising to the queen?” Johnson refused to answer and replied: “I don’t discuss my conversations with the queen.” He added: “What I was trying to say there was, I think that the blanket apology – the sort of apology I issued right at the beginning – I think the trouble with it was that afterwards, all the accusations that then rained down on officials who’d been working very hard in No 10 and elsewhere were thought to be true. “And by apologising I had sort of inadvertently validated the entire corpus and it wasn’t fair on those people.” The memoir also claimed that Gavin Williamson blocked a £400m deal to bring the [British-Iranian prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/may/13/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-tells-boris-johnson-she-lived-in-the-shadow-of-his-mistake) home from Iran five years before she was released, on the basis the money could be used by Hezbollah. Johnson said that in 2017 he reached an agreement for the dual national’s release in return for money owed by Britain to Tehran since the 1970s. The Treasury and the Foreign Office approved, but No 10 insisted the decision needed to be signed off by all relevant departments, including the Ministry of Defence, which at the time was headed by Williamson.

Cripes. Yours truly is in a bit of bother. Or perhaps I should say a bit of Bozzer! You know how it is. You have a few glasses of wine too many at lunchtime and you wake up six months later to find your publisher is wondering how your book is coming along. So you start writing in a panic, only to remember that a few keys on the laptop don’t walk. Dammit, I meant work. Still, I’m sure everything will be OK in the end. As Sappho once said – I think it was her – nothing can beat a stream of unconsciousness. Where shall I start? How about September 2019? I’m in New York and the phone rings at 5.30am. And I don’t mind telling you that I’m not at my best that early in the morning. It’s [Party Marty](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/30/covid-inquiry-martin-reynolds-party-marty-takes-witness-stand-boris-johnson-former-pps) on the line. Surely he wasn’t ringing just to let me know that the booze fridge at No 10 was nearly empty. “You should switch on the TV,” he said. “Lady Hale is giving her verdict on the prorogation.” Sod that, I thought. [What does Spiderwoman know anyway](https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jul/07/lady-hale-on-her-brexit-brooch-you-can-do-a-lot-with-a-spider)? She’s only the head of the supreme court. No one understands the complexities of the law better than me. Just another whingey remainer trying to block me. I turned off the TV. I considered my position and concluded it was pretty good. Nothing was going to stop me not building those 40 imaginary hospitals. So how had I become prime minister, you may ask? How did the Bozzmeister get the keys to No 10? Why do I keep repeating myself? The simple answer is that Theresa May was hopeless and I was the Tory party’s last hope. I mean, best hope. My time had come. [](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/07/boris-johnson-unleashed-memoir-digested-read-john-crace#img-2) ‘My only regret is apologising’ … Johnson’s memoir. Photograph: James Manning/PA The first thing I did was appoint some of the most clueless people I could find to continue the Brexit negotiations. [Frosty was the perfect man](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/20/david-frost-poison-brexit-johnson), someone so out of his depth that he would then [rubbish the deal](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/17/david-frost-handed-26000-after-quitting-as-uk-brexit-negotiator) he had concluded with the EU. I then threw every intelligent MP out of the party and promoted Thérèse Coffey, the idiot’s idiot. Finally, [I hid in a fridge](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/dec/11/boris-johnson-retreats-into-fridge-to-avoid-tv-interview-video) and won an election against an opposition leader that not even Labour members could vote for. Where am I? Ah. Time to waste 100 pages on my time as London mayor. As Dante, who was a great admirer of mine, once said: “_Nel mezzo del cammin di something or other._” So how did I become to London what Edward Gibbon was to Rome? I had been minding my own business as the editor of the Spectator and the MP for Henley when I rode my bicycle past a diplodocus bus and came to believe I could transform this great city. POW! BIFF! SOCKO! THUDEROO! I gave it to Red Ken. Here, my levelling up agenda was born. From now on, anyone with a spare £1.5m would be able to buy a two-bedroom flat in Battersea power station. Then there was the 2012 Olympics, in which I won the 10,000 metres and had my gold medal presented to me by the queen. Not to mention the glistening otters in the beach volleyball. Reminded me of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Nose Ring. _“So are you going to mention your services to pole dancing?”_ _asked [Dilyn the](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/23/boris-johnson-dog-dilyn-prime-minister-spad-no-10)_ _[dog](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/23/boris-johnson-dog-dilyn-prime-minister-spad-no-10)._ _“I’m sure we’d all like to hear about the talents of_ _[Jennifer Arcuri](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/13/how-johnson-pledged-help-for-my-business-to-win-my-love)__.”_ _“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. So what do you_ _think of it so far? Another masterpiece from the Great Sperminator?”_ _“Er …_ _well, it’s just as self-serving as I expected. After all, you don’t do introspection. And it’s_ _riddled_ _with errors. But what’s most unforgivable is that it’s really boring. Just the same old stories and excuses wheeled out yet again in leaden prose.”_ Where was I? Ah yes, Europe. I had always been a Eurosceptic. Apart from the times I wasn’t, when I was London mayor. Back in the day – after a stint on the Times, from which I had been sacked for lying – I got a job on the Telegraph, where I [just made stories up](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/07/toxic-spell-broken-boris-johnson-trips-over-own-lies). So much easier than telling the truth. Over in Brussels, I came to realise the EU was a Freudian wish-fulfilment dream. If only I had the same insight into my own narcissism. But I’ve never been curious about my behaviour; the way I invariably let down all those close to me. February 2016. I was choked. Blocked. Stuck. Unsure of which way to jump in the referendum. Some have said that I chose to back leave only because that was the best career move. But I can categorically say this is untrue. Never in my life have I taken the selfish path. My life has been one long pilgrimage of self-restraint and uxorious self-denial. The queen once told me that I was a role model for the country. What convinced me that Britain would be best out of the EU was the economics. Who in their right mind would not want the UK to take a [4% hit in GDP](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/28/brexit-worse-for-the-uk-economy-than-covid-pandemic-obr-says)? “_Alea iacta est_,” as Caesar said. There was no going back, even when that girly swot David Cameron had threatened to fuck me up. I have never forgiven Dave for becoming prime minister before me. Some have observed that I appeared shocked when the country voted for the Bozztastic Brexit. All I can say is: you try giving a press conference when you’ve been drinking the night before and Michael Gove is off his face on ketamine and magic mushrooms. And why would anyone expect us to have a plan to implement Brexit? That had been Dave’s job and he had just flounced out. So now I was being asked to take responsibility for my own actions. How unfair was that? “_This is getting even worse than I imagined,’ groaned Dilyn. ‘God knows what the editor will make of this.”_ _“There is no editor,” said the editor. “Otherwise there would be almost nothing left.”_ [](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/07/boris-johnson-unleashed-memoir-digested-read-john-crace#img-3) ‘I’m the man to keep Johnny Foreigner in his place!’ Illustration: Ella Baron/The Guardian So why, you might ask, did I not still run to be prime minister after the Gover had treached on me? After all, I would still have been the frontrunner. The simple answer is that I have never asked myself that question. Although I am certain I didn’t bottle it. That wouldn’t be like me at all. It was no more than I deserved when Theresa May invited me to be foreign secretary. “Rest assured,” I told her. “Global Britain will be safe with me. I’m the man to keep Johnny Foreigner in his place. Just wait till you see the watermelon smiles on those [flag-waving piccaninnies](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/23/london.race). Not to mention the women dressed up as letterboxes. As for Russia and China, I will be taking no prisoners.” Talking of prisoners, let me just put the record straight on Nanzanin Zagjhari-Raticliffe. No one had done more than me to get her sentence increased. Who wouldn’t want to spend a few more years in an Iranian jail? The queen later told me I was the best foreign secretary of her illustrious reign. Sadly, I had to cut my tenure short. Having praised Theresa’s Chequers deal to the heights, I found myself having to resign two days later when I realised that David Davis had walked first. We now find ourselves in December 2019. All was going smoothly, plans were well advanced to build a bridge to the US and the whole country was celebrating my great election victory. > I was magnificent during Covid. Never before in this country’s history has so much been owed by so many to me Then, in January, came the coronavirus. Let me get one thing straight. My problem was not that I knew too little about zoonotic diseases, but that I knew too much. So I knew Covid was not going to be a major problem. Who cared if 2% of the population carked it? And yes, I had witnessed the scenes from Italy, but those Mediterranean types are always overexcitable. I couldn’t see the point of attending five Cobra meetings when I had to help Carrie with her arrangements for the baby shower at Chequers. To cut a long story short, I was magnificent during Covid. Even down to being the first super-spreader, when I shook hands with a whole lot of infected people. No one could have done more than me, carrying on giving the country the leadership it needed even when I was in hospital. I was determined the Moloch would be contained. Never before in this country’s history has so much been owed by so many to me, as Cicero once said. Time and again, I came to this country’s rescue. By awarding PPE contracts to Michelle Mone. By personally developing a vaccine. If we had remained in the EU, no one in the UK would have got a vaccination and the whole country would have died. There were no lengths to which I would not go to keep my people safe. I even asked Bear Grylls, Russell Brand and Ant Middleton to launch an attack on the Netherlands to steal a large supply of the vaccine that they didn’t have because they were in the EU. Slip unnoticed into Rotterdam harbour and then explode a nuclear device. The queen positively purred when I explained the plan to her. What could possibly go wrong with attacking a Nato ally, she said. Quite right, I said. The Dutch are practically Germans, so are not to be trusted. I seem to have forgotten some other bits. Like how I keep being let down by people I have appointed while never once doubting my judgment. Take Dominic Cummings. When he explained how he had immediately gathered together his family after testing positive for Covid so that they could drive 250 miles to Durham, then took his family out for another drive to test his eyesight, it all made complete sense. Amid all this, there were a few personal high points. Like my wedding to Carrie. The happiest day of my life. Largely because someone else was paying. Every prime minister needs a sucker like the Bamfords who will fork out cash on demand. I liked to call them my personal ATM. Now to the parties. The parties that absolutely did not happen. _“You mean the Abba party,” growled Dilyn. “The one on the night you fired Dom. I didn’t get a wink.”_ _“Shut up,” I said. “Or you’ll be back to the_ _dog_ _rescue.”_ As I was saying, none of the parties ever took place. All the rules were obeyed at all times, because that’s the kind of guy I am. [My only regret is apologising](https://www.itv.com/news/2024-10-04/boris-johnson-tells-itv-news-he-regrets-apologising-for-partygate) in the first place. I should have just kept on lying about them and trying to brazen it out. But that’s me all over. If I have a fault, it’s that I’m too honest. Anyway, you know how it is. One thing led to another: the parties, the Owen Paterson and Chris Pincher scandals. Soon, 60 ministers were resigning in protest. Caesar had fewer wounds than me. “Don’t worry,” said Charlotte Owen, an office junior in No 10. “I’m sure you will come through this crisis.” [Give that woman a peerage](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/17/charlotte-owen-sexist-gossip-lords-journalists). I did try writing to all the Tory MPs – “Dear Grunts” – whom I had never bothered to speak to in the previous three years, but they too were ungrateful for all I had done. So that was it. I was out of office. Them’s the breaks. Still, at least I could now cash in on the speaker circuit and write a deeply reflective memoir. _“I’m still waiting,” said the publisher._ On which note, I leave you with the queen’s parting words to me. “My first prime minister was Winston Churchill. My last were you and Liz Truss. Just imagine. I think I might as well die now.” **Digested read, digested: Unreliable. Unhinged. Unreadable.** Depraved New World by John Crace is out now (Guardian Faber, £16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at [guardianbookshop.com](https://www.guardianbookshop.com/depraved-new-world-9781783352739?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article). Delivery charges may apply

Keir Starmer’s decision to accept clothing freebies “looks greedy”, according to [Boris Johnson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson). The former prime minister criticised his [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) successor’s decision to accept gifts of clothing and glasses, saying Starmer “must be worth a bob or two” as a result of his legal career. Johnson made the remarks as he defended his government’s decision to award contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) to inexperienced suppliers during the Covid pandemic, some of which had close links with ministers. Speaking to LBC on Tuesday, the former MP said: “I want you to know, I have no donors paying for my suits. Or spectacles. Who pays for your spectacles? You pay for your spectacles, don’t you? It’s unbelievable. “I mean, the guy (Sir Keir), he’s a silk, right? I mean, he must be worth a bob or two. Why has he got some guy paying for his spectacles?” Johnson, who is promoting his memoir, Unleashed, questioned why Starmer had accepted lavish gifts from the Labour peer and donor Lord Alli when he was “on a perfectly good salary from the government anyway”. He added: “You know, that looks greedy, right? But if you then give the guy a pass to No 10, that looks corrupt. And so I just don’t get it. I don’t know why he’s still wearing those spectacles. “Well, apart from the fact he can’t see. He can’t see what a mess he’s making of things.” Johnson has received numerous donations towards his lifestyle. He received a donation worth £23,853 from the longtime Conservative benefactor, the JCB boss Anthony Bamford, towards his wedding to Carrie Symonds in 2022. The donation covered the cost of hiring a marquee, Portaloos, waiting staff, flowers, a South African barbecue and an ice-cream van. Bamford’s wife, Carole, also donated luxury food from her business, Daylesford Organic, to the former prime minister. He also notoriously received contributions from Lord Brownlow towards the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat – the Electoral Commission ultimately fined the Tory party over the donation as it was not declared properly. Elsewhere in the LBC interview, Johnson was asked if he would apologise for initiating wasteful and dubious Covid contracts related to PPE during the pandemic. In recent months, the campaign group Transparency International UK has raised red flags about more than 130 such contracts, claiming some of them are at risk of corruption as they were awarded to inexperienced companies with close links to the Tories. The BBC, meanwhile, has reported PPE worth an estimated £1.4bn, which was acquired by the government in a single deal during the Covid pandemic, has been destroyed or written off. Johnson told LBC he remembered “our absolute desperation” to get PPE into the UK. He then apologised for the dubious nature of some contracts: “They did and I’m sorry about that but, you know, frankly, we needed that stuff as fast as possible. And I think most people really understand that. Our country was desperate for protective equipment. “And, you know, I defend the government in trying to get it as fast as possible. And all sorts of crazy people were recommended to us for PPE, but we just had to act as fast as we could.”

**John Crace**, the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer and author of [Taking the Lead: A Dog at Number 10](https://guardianbookshop.com/taking-the-lead-9781408721278/?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article), searches Boris Johnson’s new memoir Unleashed for any signs of self-reflection. “Clearly, Boris did hope that by writing this book, maybe the country would fall in love with him again,” John tells **Helen Pidd**. “But, if anything, it’s going to restore and revive ongoing resentments that have been buried. “Boris has done somehow the most unforgivable thing of all. I mean, of course, it’s self-serving. Of course it’s riddled with inaccuracies, we kind of expect that. But he has managed to make his own life really, really boring.” John and Helen discuss Johnson’s accounts of delivering Brexit, the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case, and his “series of pathetic apologies” over No 10’s Partygate. Support the Guardian today: [theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod](http://theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod)  Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work. [Support The Guardian](https://support.theguardian.com/contribute?acquisitionData=%7B%22componentType%22%3A%22ACQUISITIONS_OTHER%22%2C%22source%22%3A%22DIRECT%22%2C%22campaignCode%22%3A%22todayinfocus%22%2C%22componentId%22%3A%22episode_page%22%7D&INTCMP=todayinfocus)

Boris Johnson’s memoir, Unleashed, sold 42,528 copies in its opening week after being published on 10 October, making it the bestselling book of last week. This means Johnson has outsold David Cameron’s 2019 memoir, [For the Record](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/22/for-the-record-david-cameron-review), which sold 20,792 copies in the week it was published, though Tony Blair’s memoir, [A Journey](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/sep/05/tony-blair-a-journey-book-review), sold 92,060 copies in its opening week. [Liz Truss](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/26/liz-truss-book-first-week-sales-bestseller-list) shifted just 2,228 copies of her memoir, [Ten Years to Save the West](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/17/ten-years-to-save-the-west-by-liz-truss-review-shamelessly-unrepentant), in its first week on sale earlier this year. Margaret Thatcher’s 1993 memoir, [The Downing Street Years](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1993/oct/24/featuresreview.review), is estimated to have sold 120,000 copies in its first week on sale, though the book was published before publishing sales data company Nielsen BookScan’s records began. “We’re delighted to see Boris Johnson’s Unleashed as the nation’s overall No 1 this week,” said a spokesperson from Johnson’s publisher, HarperCollins. “Boris is a writer to the core and Unleashed is a compulsively readable and unputdownable account of these recent turbulent years.” Unleashed covers Johnson’s time as mayor of London, foreign secretary and prime minister, taking in Covid, Brexit and the 2019 election, among other major political events. “Johnson’s book gives his version of the big episodes,” wrote Martin Kettle in a [Guardian review](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/03/unleashed-by-boris-johnson-review-memoirs-of-a-clown). “But it dodges the larger issues they raise.” “It is full of angry self-righteousness,” he added. “Though Johnson likes to parade the outward signs of his intellect, there is not a philosophical sentence in the entire book.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/15/boris-johnson-memoir-unleashed-sells-more-than-40000-copies-in-first-week-on-sale#EmailSignup-skip-link-6) Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion [ Unleashed by Boris Johnson review – memoirs of a clown ](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/03/unleashed-by-boris-johnson-review-memoirs-of-a-clown) The book came ahead of Tim Spector’s The Food for Life Cookbook, which sold 29,732 copies, and Ian Rankin’s Midnight and Blue, which sold 19,359. Richard Osman was fourth in the chart, having sold 17,522 copies of We Solve Murders, published last month. Images have emerged online of copies of the memoir in shops being [positioned next to or covered by titles](https://x.com/jdpoc/status/1844738791606493495?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1844738791606493495%7Ctwgr%5E6f5088e36d8b432c83a4ad1fad0847b08b98392d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indy100.com%2Fpolitics%2Fboris-johnson-unleashed-bookshops-shelves) such as The Idiot by Elif Batuman, Entitlement by Rumaan Alam, Surrounded by Liars and Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson, The Psychology of Stupidity by Jean-François Marmion, How They Broke Britain by James O’Brien, The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey and A Short History of the World in 50 Lies by Natasha Tidd. Other social media photos show the book placed [next to toilet paper](https://x.com/chrisjamespage/status/1844832099829678082) and [cat litter](https://x.com/riotgrandma72/status/1845423170888630673/photo/2) in supermarkets and [put in the fiction section](https://x.com/paulscarrington/status/1845026775706825025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1845026775706825025%7Ctwgr%5Ea3a08c5dbfd6847b000610ec7adf1e657a5f416a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indy100.com%2Fpolitics%2Fboris-johnson-unleashed-bookshops-shelves) of WH Smiths. A parody of the memoir, [Unhinged](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/10/i-felt-like-achilles-in-a-hard-hat-an-extract-from-boris-johnsons-alternative-memoir) by Ian Martin, which was also published on Thursday, is being [displayed prominently](https://x.com/mrjamesob/status/1844779972742758591?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1844779972742758591%7Ctwgr%5E6f5088e36d8b432c83a4ad1fad0847b08b98392d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indy100.com%2Fpolitics%2Fboris-johnson-unleashed-bookshops-shelves). Billed as the “perfect parody Christmas gift book for that selfish egomaniac in your life”, the book teaches readers to “trivialise everything with buffoonery” and “rebuild reality using various self-centred techniques”, according to publisher Bloomsbury. A YouGov poll [published today](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/50687-which-of-boris-johnsons-memoir-claims-do-britons-believe) found that many Britons do not believe claims made in Unleashed. Only a quarter of respondents thought Johnson’s claim that Buckingham Palace asked him to try and convince Prince Harry not to leave the UK with his family was probably or definitely true, with 46% thinking it probably or definitely false, and 29% unsure. Just 31% thought his claim that Brexit meant the UK was able to get Covid vaccines faster than EU countries was probably or definitely true. _Unleashed by Boris Johnson (HarperCollins Publishers, £30). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at [guardianbookshop.com](https://www.guardianbookshop.com/unleashed-9780008618209/?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article). Delivery charges may apply._

Unless you’re in the very top percentile of political wonks, the best way to experience the US election results is to look at your phone when you wake up, groan to yourself and then go back to sleep. This is because, when watching a US election from these drizzly shores, nothing interesting happens until about 4am. But try telling that to the UK’s media, which has a habit of treating US elections the same way dogs look at bollards they want to wee on. Both the BBC and ITV’s coverage kicked off a bit before 11pm last night, light years before anything worthwhile was scheduled to occur. [Channel 4](https://www.theguardian.com/media/channel4) went off even more half-cocked, diving into its coverage at 10pm. And then there was Sky News, which by 7.30pm was broadcasting endless split-screen footage of empty polling booths and slightly floppy lawn signs, like an awful Slow TV remake of 24. Usually on an occasion like this, your first stop would be the [BBC](https://www.theguardian.com/media/bbc), which you would expect to engage in the sort of pomp and heft it does so well. And yet its output was weirdly muted and anonymous, a sort of ChatGPT of a thing, all bright purples and fixed grins, with none of the big guns wheeled out in any meaningful way. It didn’t feel like watching the BBC at all, instead having the feel of something you’d only sit through if it was the sole English language show available in a hotel you’d travelled to for work. At least, if nothing else, ITV treated the election as a bit more of a priority. Tom Bradby, the channel’s biggest name, was brought in to host all night long. You’ll remember that this was also the case during the UK election, which leads me to believe that Bradby is part-vampire and that he would explode in a cloud of ash if he ever came into contact with daylight. The big draw here was the level of guest involved. Sarah Palin was onscreen so much that she probably qualified as a co-host. At one point J-Lo even popped up to endorse Kamala Harris. Aside from that, this was ITV by numbers – solid, competent, a tad boring, maybe tinged with envy that the final result wouldn’t come in until Good Morning Britain had started. But maybe you didn’t want to stay up and watch analysts scroll through potential voting models. Maybe you just wanted to watch a bunch of fantastically bad-tempered people in a room that was slightly too small. This is where Channel 4 came in. It’s genuinely impossible to overstate just how violently furious the whole setup was. Crammed around a minuscule triangular table, like a couple who weren’t expecting everyone to turn up for dinner, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Emily Maitlis essentially spent hours bristling at everything their guests had to say. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/nov/06/boris-johnson-j-lo-weird-ways-uk-tv-covered-us-election#EmailSignup-skip-link-5) Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Sometimes this tipped over into outright anger. [Boris Johnson was booked as the main guest for the first two hours](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/06/channel-4-fired-boris-johnson-from-us-election-show-for-promoting-his-book-co-host-says), ostensibly to plug his book. In actuality, his job was to be treated as a sort of Trump analogue, to be shouted down and screamed at by the hosts whenever he was silly enough to open his mouth. There were others. Sean Spicer was there at the start, so shriekingly furious that his head perpetually looked like it was going to burst open. Stormy Daniels also turned up, to say three sentences then look on astonished as everyone around her started yelling at each other like a dysfunctional family. True, as the night wore on, the anger gave way to despair. However, Channel 4’s election coverage was so hostile, so cartoonishly combative, that it probably gave PTSD to anyone who grew up in a loveless marriage. As political punditry, it failed on every level. But as the world’s angriest piece of kabuki theatre? Loved it. Do it every night, please. However, perhaps the best approach, given the distance and time difference and overall lack of certainty, was the one taken by the Rest is Politics podcast. Holed up out of everyone’s way on YouTube – with a panel including Marina Hyde, Dominic Sandbrook and obligatory aggrieved former Trump insider Anthony Scaramucci – hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart plonked themselves behind a couple of conference tables and blathered on from 8pm to midnight. And then – this is the genius bit – they all just left, going dark for five whole hours, before eventually putting in another stint. When they did return at 5am, their solid faith in a Harris win had dissolved, and they spent the morning grimly dismantling the echo chamber that allowed them to get it so wrong. There wasn’t much separating it from the other coverage, but at least it encouraged us to get a bit of sleep before reality hit home. Maybe, come 2028, we should all do it this way.

[](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-2) **Occupation** Recruitment director **Voting record** Conservative when they were more mainstream, but never again after austerity. Now Lib Dem **Amuse** **bouche** When Maria was 13 and growing up in Ireland, she inherited £50 and bought a sheep. Her brother got £100. “He bought a cow, so I was really envious” ### Paul, 63, Manchester [](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-3) **Occupation** CCTV operator **Voting record** Reform, before that the Brexit party and Ukip. Describes himself as “king of the gammons, the sort of person a Guardian reader would run a mile from”. Although … **Amuse bouche** Paul does read the Guardian, is vegetarian, and has been to Pakistan, Ethiopia and North Korea. “People think that because I’m on the right, I must do two weeks in Benidorm” ### For starters **Maria** I had an alcohol-free beer, anchovies as a starter, then a tomato and tuna salad. Paul is a conundrum – a vegetarian Guardian reader, and a Millwall fan. He loves travelling, but seemed to have a huge mistrust of foreigners and is quite rightwing. He probably thought I was a conundrum. **Paul** I was nervous and thought: “What have I let myself in for?” I was a bit terrified you’d send me a Portuguese or Brazilian immigrant who wouldn’t understand my humour, but Maria is Irish so we had a bit of craic. [](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-4) ### The big beef **Maria** The 7 October was horrific. In no way do I support Hamas. [Israel](https://www.theguardian.com/world/israel) had the right to defend itself, but what they have done is way over the top. I’m very against Netanyahu. He’s not thinking about the hostages, or the Israeli people, he’s just desperate for votes from the right of his party. He is obliterating Gaza: 42,000 killed and 80% of buildings destroyed. **Paul** I’m not Jewish, I’m not Christian; Israel is just a country I really like. I’ve been there, have friends there, I agree with the Zionist narrative and support what’s going on there. Maria is Irish, so she has an automatic kind of sympathy for the underdog. I look at Israel and see people who have been treated badly returning to their homelands. **Maria** Ireland was one of the first European countries to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state. They were banished from their lands; my ancestors were banished from ours; Britain colonised both countries. My hope is for a two-state solution. **Paul** That ship has sailed. They’ve had a chance for a two-state solution since 1937, when it was first proposed. It’s just going to carry on until unfortunately something big happens. If politicians have been unable to solve this, I don’t know how two people having a meal in Manchester are going to do it. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#EmailSignup-skip-link-24) Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion [](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-5) ### Sharing plate **Maria** The only thing we agreed on was our mutual dislike of [Boris Johnson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson). It’s all about him, and he goes with the wind, like with Brexit. It depends on the career opportunities for him, and then he obviously lied through his teeth. **Paul** Boris is an opportunist charlatan. [](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-6) ### For afters **Maria** If you look at the stats, natural disasters have increased five-fold in just 50 years – look at the floods, wildfires in Greece, etc. He said that’s all arsonists; he just didn’t seem that bothered. **Paul** In the 70s, we were told there would be an ice age, then it was acid rain, then a hole in the ozone layer in the 90s. There’s just so much scare-mongering that it breeds in people of my age and class a lot of cynicism and the feeling that it’s just a kind of scam. Politicians were never interested in green issues until they realised they could tax people; then they suddenly became very enthusiastic. **Maria** I asked: “Are you not worried about your children?” He said: “I don’t have children.” I don’t have children either, but I worry about my nieces and nephews, and for future generations. **Paul** I think the climate is changing, but that human input is not as extensive as made out. If we adopted every single principle of net zero and everyone in Britain gave up their cars, it wouldn’t make any difference except to make ourselves a lot poorer. [](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-7) ### Takeaways **Maria** It was really beneficial to meet somebody so opposite to me and try to understand where they came from. He was very respectful, and we had a bit of a laugh. But it hasn’t changed any of my beliefs – we’re worlds apart. **Paul** You have to get out of your comfort zone in terms of your narratives and mantras, and try to see it in neutral terms. She’s a nice lady, and there was no animosity. At the end it was a case of: nice to meet you, have a nice life. [](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/07/dining-across-the-divide-the-only-thing-we-agreed-on-was-our-mutual-dislike-of-boris-johnson#img-8) _Additional reporting: Kitty Drake_ Maria and Paul ate at [Tast in Manchester](https://tastcatala.com/). Want to meet someone from across the divide? [Find out how to take part](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/oct/24/second-homes-big-tech-smoking-we-want-your-views-on-divisive-issues)