Boris Gets Deleted For Shameless Promotion Of His Book

….need a cup of tea now: only seem to be able to copy a few paragraphs at a time!

A relationship fundamentally soured by prorogation was now in freefall. “I don’t think relations ever fully recovered,” Harri said.

‘Elizabeth the Great’
Johnson resigned in July 2022 and was replaced by Liz Truss. Less than a week later Britain’s longest-serving monarch passed away.

The Queen died at 3.10 p.m. on September 8. Johnson issued an eloquent statement and then gave one of his best speeches in the Commons, seeking to popularise the name “Elizabeth the Great”.

Missing the chance to make the speech from the dispatch box by three days was exquisite torture. “He totally adored her,” said one former No 10 adviser. However, a Tory close to the royal household suggested mischievously that “Her Majesty wanted to hang on long enough to see Boris off the premises”.

On Saturday, September 10, privy counsellors — including all living former prime ministers — gathered at St James’s Palace for the accession council ceremony, where Charles read a formal notice of the Queen’s death and Penny Mordaunt, just appointed lord president of the council, read a list of the new king’s duties. As archbishops, judges and peers rubbed shoulders and the ousted Tory prime ministers made awkward small talk, a cabinet minister offered his condolences to one of the Queen’s closest aides. “It must have been very difficult,” he said.

The courtier explained that the Queen’s final days had been happy ones. She had enjoyed a gathering of her family and treasured staff two evenings before her death. The courtier confided that when Boris Johnson was mentioned, the Queen, mischief in her eye, had said: “Well at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now.”

This, it seems, was said to amuse but it was a widely shared sentiment in the royal household.

Out by Tim Shipman

Further tensions between Charles and Johnson followed over his government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which Charles thought “appalling”. He feared it would mar the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

At the summit Johnson privately took the heir to the throne to task for “shitbagging” his flagship plan.

“Did you actually criticise government policy?” he asked. Johnson told an aide that Charles replied: “Well maybe, inadvertently, without intention I may have said something.”

Charles revealed that he wanted to respond to the widespread fury about colonialism unleashed by the Black Lives Matter campaign, by acknowledging the evils of slavery. Johnson, despairing that even the monarchy had been captured by “woke” ideology, was blunt: “I wouldn’t talk about slavery if I were you, or you’ll end up having to sell the Duchy of Cornwall to pay reparations to the people who built the Duchy of Cornwall.”

When Johnson emerged from this encounter he told Guto Harri, his director of communications, “I went in quite hard.”

Charles ignored the prime minister, telling the summit: “I cannot describe the depth of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.”

The most awkward moment for Johnson came when he had to phone the Queen. After the verdict John Major, who helped bring the Supreme Court case and had been an adviser to Princes William and Harry, urged the prime minister to make an “unreserved apology” to the monarch: “No prime minister can ever treat the Queen this way.”

Major reflected undiluted fury among senior members of the royal family and courtiers in the royal household about Johnson’s behaviour.

“John Major is very, very close to the Queen,” said a Tory source with close links to senior royals. “The Queen has to do what she is told to do by the prime minister, but they did not want to prorogue parliament in these circumstances. Nobody trusts Boris.”

The source said Johnson would never receive the order of the garter, the traditional honour for retired prime ministers, while the Queen was alive.

The Queen’s reaction was actually more sanguine than some. She thought Johnson a roguish and comic figure and took the disaster in her stride. One senior royal aide characterised her approach as, “These things happen”.

The Queen liked doing impersonations of her prime ministers, Gordon Brown being a particular favourite. A month after the Supreme Court ruling, she had an audience with a politician who was adept at impersonating Johnson. Enjoying herself, the monarch remarked of the PM: “I think he was perhaps better suited to the stage.”

‘Charles was absolutely furious’
The anger on the monarch’s behalf, however, from the Prince of Wales in particular, was intense.

“Charles was absolutely furious,” a royal insider said. “He was outraged that Boris should treat the Queen like that. She wouldn’t ever say anything, but he was pretty robust in private.”

The anger was shared by Prince William, whose private secretary was Simon Case, who had previously been in No 10.

“I think that Simon Case wound William up,” a senior civil servant said. Constitutionally, the Queen had no choice but to accept Johnson’s request to prorogue. But William’s aides let it be known that in his reign as king there would be “more private, robust challenging of advice” between the monarch and his prime ministers.

On the morning of Friday, October 4, Cummings called a meeting in No 10 to discuss ways for Johnson to circumvent the Benn act. Officials insisted that James Eadie, the leading counsel to the government, also attend the meeting. Sedwill was absent and MacNamara was working from home in southeast London. She got a call from a private secretary just after 9am telling her to get to Whitehall as quickly as possible.

One of her sons was ill and the other was going through a phase where he wore a Wonder Woman dress with a Little Red Riding Hood cape. She put the sick one, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown, into the car with a pillow — Wonder Woman riding shotgun. Inside No 10 she shoved her children towards a waiting Cabinet Office official and arrived just in time.

Cummings said he wanted to hear what would happen if Johnson didn’t send the letter and broke the law. The prime minister interjected: “What if I just wrote ‘Up yours!’ on it?”

Eadie and MacNamara exchanged a look. MacNamara explained that the Benn act dictated the exact wording of the letter which must be sent. Cummings was adamant, “Well we just won’t send it.”

Gesturing at Johnson, he added: “They can put you in jail.”

Anti-Brexit campaigners protest against the proroguing of parliament
Anti-Brexit campaigners protest against the proroguing of parliament
DINENDRA HARIA/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
MacNamara warned that if the government set out to break the law, officials would down tools and mutiny. “The civil service can’t work for you. If you want to do that, it’s the law, none of us can work for you.”

Cummings had previously contemplated the ultimate photo opportunity to dramatise Johnson’s desire to deliver Brexit.

“We’ll just barricade the door and the police can f* off. They’ll have to break the f***ing door down.”

Another Vote Leaver said: “There was serious conversation about what happens if the police come to arrest the PM.”

Johnson chipped in: “I’ll barricade myself in. They’ll have to winkle me out with a flamethrower.”

Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson on the day parliament was prorogued: September 9, 2019
Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson on the day parliament was prorogued: September 9, 2019
REX
MacNamara thought they had both misunderstood how his scenario would play out. Far from protecting Johnson from a policeman with a warrant for his arrest, those guarding the building would be the ones arresting him.

“The police don’t work for you in that situation, Dom, they work for me,” she said. “They work for us. It’s not your building. These aren’t your people. The police work for the Queen. We all work for the Queen.”

Johnson confirmed later: “She did say that.”

Eddie Lister, Johnson’s chief strategic adviser, had another question: “Can the Queen sack the prime minister?”

It had not happened since King ­William IV dismissed Lord Melbourne in 1834.

“Do you really want us to have to advise the monarch that she’s going to have to ask you to stand down?” MacNamara snapped.

Johnson, losing his nerve, blurted: “This might be getting a bit out of hand!” Another source said: “He wasn’t keen to serve at Her Majesty’s pleasure.”

The Supreme Court ruled Johnson’s prorogation unlawful on September 24.

A protester outside the Supreme Court hearing

This was a deeply unedifying moment for Cox. Given what happened next, it was also one of the nadirs of Johnson’s premiership. Asked later about his request to the attorney-general, Johnson said he could not remember it, but he did not deny it.

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Johnson began the conference call by announcing the plan to suspend parliament for five weeks: “That will give ample time to all our colleagues in parliament to debate the issue of Brexit.”

Johnson sounded like a suspect who worries he is being bugged, reading out the legal justification of his actions for the tape: “What this is not, this is emphatically not some attempt to prorogue parliament to get Brexit through,” he said. “On the contrary, that’s absolutely not what we are doing.”

He did not know one of his ministers was indeed taping the call. When Cox spoke, he said, “In my judgment, there is nothing unlawful and certainly nothing unconstitutional about what is now proposed.”

Of Cox’s concerns that prorogation could be struck down by the Supreme Court there was no mention at all.

After the event, a senior civil servant explained that Johnson’s request to Cox that he withhold information from the cabinet was questionable but not unconstitutional: “That was a call to brief the cabinet, not a meeting in which the cabinet was reaching a decision. That is the unbelievable sliver of veneer that makes it okay.”

Yet as Johnson drew the meeting to a close, he said: “Cabinet approves the proposal for a Queen’s Speech.”

A chorus of yeses followed. As far as Johnson was concerned it was a decision-making cabinet and ministers had decided in his favour. The Benn act passed, requiring Johnson to write a letter to Brussels asking for an extension to Brexit. This he and Dominic Cummings opposed. Cox and Richard Keen, the Scottish advocate-general, said they would resign. Cummings told Johnson to sack them.

Listen, I’ve spoken to the Queen and prorogation is going on. Please don’t spook the cabinet by talking about the litigation risk.”

Here was a sitting prime minister, on the verge of the most controversial constitutional move in a century, asking his attorney-general to withhold key information from his cabinet. Had it become public, it might have led to resignations. Cox was uncomfortable with the request but considered the position Johnson had put him in. The Queen had already given her approval, he could not put the genie back in the bottle.

He chose his words carefully: “Well, prime minister, since prorogation is already in process, I will simply tell my colleagues that, in my view, it is lawful and leave it at that.”

“Yes, please.”

But officials remained concerned about whether the Queen was aware of what she was getting into.

“We knew at that point that it was going to be legally challenged,” one mandarin said.

‘Please don’t spook the cabinet’
Helen MacNamara, the deputy secretary to the cabinet, called Richard Tilbrook, the clerk of the privy council, whose job it was to brief the Queen, to impress on him that the monarch was being asked to do something controversial. Tilbrook flew to Scotland. Tilbrook, “a woodland animal”, shy and quiet, sat mute and horrified on the 45-minute minibus ride to Balmoral beside Rees-Mogg.

The monarch gave her approval to the plan. She had already spoken to Johnson by telephone that morning. But that was not the most notable of the prime minister’s conversations that day. Ten minutes before the cabinet conference call, Cox was sitting in his study in Devon when his mobile phone rang. It was Johnson: “Geoffrey.”

“Yes, prime minister.”

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In mid-August Dominic Grieve, the former attorney-general, and other Bresistance rebels were tipped off about the prorogation plan. They agreed to draw up a bill, to be introduced by Hilary Benn, chairman of the European scrutiny committee, to seize control of the Commons order paper and
outlaw no-deal. Four days later the prorogation plan leaked.

Downing Street’s original plan had been for Jacob Rees-Mogg, in his capacity as lord president of the privy council, to meet the Queen at Balmoral at noon on Wednesday, August 28.

He was to be accompanied by Natalie Evans, the leader of the Lords, and Mark Spencer, the government chief whip.

An hour later Johnson was to hold a conference call with the cabinet to seek retrospective support for the move. The leaks meant the conference call was hastily pulled forward.

Political and palace sources confirm that reassurances were given by Downing Street to the royal household, via the “golden triangle” of aides — the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill, Johnson’s principal private secretary Peter Hill and the Queen’s man Sir Edward Young — that the plan was regarded as lawful and constitutional. “The palace was nervous about the length of the prorogation,” a Whitehall official said. “Reassurance was sought and the message went back that everything was above board.”

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Oh. Well done MayBee.

Thanks for posting those snippets

MayBee70

Has anyone read this article about him by Tim Shipman in today’s Times?
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/boris-johnson-queen-tim-shipman-nch7ntg5f

Gosh, yes! Shipman posted bits of it on twitter this morning. His narrative appears to contradict Johnson's in places. I'm tempted to buy that book

Sadly, can't read the Times extracts as I don't subscribe and don't know how to work around the paywall.

Here's his twitter thread, though:

x.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1855401911115022616

Nikki da Costa, the head of legislative affairs, outlined plans to prorogue parliament for five weeks between September 9 and October 14. Prorogation usually lasted less than a week, two at the most. What followed was seen by critics as the greatest act of constitutional vandalism since Charles I sent soldiers to arrest five members of the Long Parliament. Allies believed it was the signature act of a leader who had to take bold decisions to defend and uphold, at all costs, the outcome of a democratic vote, the 2016 EU referendum. Perhaps it was both.

‘Very unwise indeed’
Geoffrey Cox was not invited to the Chevening summit, but the attorney-general had already given Johnson his view on prorogation in July, warning that it might lead to a legal challenge in the Supreme Court. Politically, the AG felt that prorogation “is very unwise indeed” but that equally, “It would be unwise of a court to interfere.” However, Cox had appeared as a barrister in front of Brenda Hale, the president of the Supreme Court. He regarded her as an activist judge. The attorney-general texted the prime minister: “With this Supreme Court, we cannot be confident that it would not interfere.”

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On August 13, Cox was invited to a fish supper in Johnson’s Downing Street flat for another off-the-books discussion about prorogation.

“In my view, it is lawful,” he said. “But I must warn you, prime minister, that with this Supreme Court … I simply cannot rule out the real litigation risk that we would be incurring.”

He said that if Johnson was determined to take the idea forward, “You should instruct me formally.” That meant sending a written brief asking for his views.

The following day, August 14, Cox was formally instructed, but not on whether a five-week prorogation was lawful or justiciable, only on a narrow point, whether it was compatible with legislation in Northern Ireland. Cox advised in writing that it did not prevent prorogation. But in his final paragraph, he repeated his warning: “You must be aware that there are a broader range of issues affecting this question … The appetite of the Supreme Court to intervene will depend on the context.”

This was Johnson’s third warning. He ignored it. Cox heard nothing more.

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This is the beginning of it for people who don’t like to open links…
When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019 he was determined to prevent anti-Brexit MPs thwarting his efforts to get Brexit done. He vowed to suspend parliament to prevent them.

Johnson made the most controversial decision of his premiership wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts, black work shoes and formal socks, his T-shirt damp with sweat. The prime minister had just played tennis in this bizarre get-up on the court at Chevening when he sat down with his senior staff to discuss a plan to prorogue parliament.

Knowledge of the meeting, on Saturday August 10, let alone the plan, had been confined to a small circle of key advisers, now gathered around a large table upstairs, in a room overlooking the lake. Sunlight streamed in from the garden obscuring the screen set up at the end of the room. It was the prime minister himself, in his incongruous outfit, who “clambered up on a sofa to try to close the shutters”, one colleague remembered.

Has anyone read this article about him by Tim Shipman in today’s Times?
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/boris-johnson-queen-tim-shipman-nch7ntg5f

I read Harry's book! Don't shoot me!

You deserve a medal for finishing it! 👏🎖️

Three weeks ago most sources were saying that sales of Johnson's book had slumped. It wasn't the huge seller that the DM predicted...

If I want to read a work of fiction I'll go for a good novel by a good writer.

Allira

I think that, if we only read books which confirm our own opinions, we never consider alternative views.

I couldn’t agree more but I’m such a chicken that if I get a copy of Boris’s book I’ll have to put another cover on it so the family doesn’t twig.

My Christmas dinner might be at risk otherwise. 😮😂

I don’t ever vote conservative ( apart from once when Margaret thatcher was starting out) but I rather liked Rory Stewart.

I don’t want to read political autobiographies or biographies because I don’t care about their ‘struggles.’

I read many real life autobiographies about many people who have done amazing things or overcome amazing difficulties. I’ve read many books written by people who fought in the resistance in WW2, about Jews who managed somehow to survive the Holocaust in Europe, about people who have overcome illnesses and all sorts of troubles and tragedies. I don’t read political biographies, I’m not interested, nor do I read biographies of actors or retired princes. I’d rather read about real people who have overcome difficulties in their lives. I once read a book about an American woman who married an Iranian man in America. She went to Iran with him and became trapped. She eventually managed to leave, with her little daughter, and went home to America. It was a lesson in courage and determination.

I was given a copy of one of his first books as a sort of "joke" present many moons ago!

In an act of defiance, I keep it on the bookshelf next to my signed copy of Ken Livingstone's first book

It is not about him bieng right and wrong- it is his explanation of how decision are made, by people who have NO idea whatsoever of the reality on the ground.

You should read his book Alira, to consider alternative views- really.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Rory Stewart, a podcaster who once ran a province in Iraq (the fact that he shares his podcast with the man who helped destroy Iraq, Alastair Campbell, never fails to amaze me). 😊

People being convinced of their own righteousness does not necessarily make them right.

Rory Stewart, a podcaster who once ran a province in Iraq (the fact that he shares his podcast with the man who helped destroy Iraq, Alastair Campbell, never fails to amaze me). 😊

Allira

I think that, if we only read books which confirm our own opinions, we never consider alternative views.

True.

I think that, if we only read books which confirm our own opinions, we never consider alternative views.