Endnotes

ACT 1 – ORIGINS

Chapter 1: The Truth

1 ‘All his wit, charm and self-deprecation’: Prue White, The Times, 30 December 2017

2 ‘I learned from my mother’: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

3 ‘660 boys stood to attention’: The Sunday Times, 11 May 2008

4 ‘swollen head’: Stanley Johnson, Stanley I Presume, Fourth Estate (2009), p.57

5 fed boiled eggs: interview with author

6 Charlotte blamed herself: Charlotte Wahl, interview with author

7 Although published, it was not successful: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

8 He cares far more about other animals: Mail on Sunday, 18 January 2017

9 ‘Total garbage. Honestly’: The Sunday Times, 30 December 2017

10 ‘Human relations remain a mystery to me’: The Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2004

11 ‘Let’s see who can be quietest for longest’: Evening Standard, 27 February 2012

12 drive through the night to a hospital: The Telegraph, 11 January 2016

13 ‘Bring it on, I say’: Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson, Andrew Gimson, Simon & Schuster (2006), p.19

14 illegitimate daughter of a nineteenth-century German prince: The Sunday Times, 3 August 2008

15 the ‘too rough’ Johnsons: Rachel Johnson, The Sunday Times, 19 April 2019

16 meeting her father for lunch: Mail on Sunday, 19 November 2017

17 rampantly unfaithful and a serial womaniser: Sonia Purnell, p.34; Andrew Gimson p.27

18 ‘Freud and the mind is a particular mystery’: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

19 sympathy for Charlotte’s illness: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

20 ‘I feel fiercely protective towards my parents’: The Times, 6 June 2015

21 ‘your mother disappearing for eight months’: Evening Standard, 19 March 2013; ‘Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise’, Michael Cockerell, BBC Two (2013)

22 never leave his beloved mother: Mail on Sunday, 27 March 2016

23 whether he delivered his children on their first day: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

24 ‘not to have emotional needs’: The Times, 6 June 2015

25 ‘I relied on the schools’: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

26 an affair with one of the girls: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

27 ‘lifelong distrust of authority’: The Telegraph, 26 October 2019

Chapter 2: Effortlessly Superior

1 ‘because I never asked them’: The Telegraph, 31 January 2004; The Sunday Times, 31 May 2008

2 ‘not to say completely unfaithful’: Andrew Gimson, p.35

3 They handled it brilliantly’: Andrew Gimson, p.39

4 ‘We had no home’: Rachel Johnson, interview with author

5 ‘There wasn’t much to eat’: The Times, 6 June 2015

6 first hundred lines of the Iliad in Greek: The Telegraph, 17 March 2009

7 ‘didn’t get the seat’: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

8 ‘or told Boris to behave’: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

9 Alex de Ferranti, a school friend of Rachel’s: Mail on Sunday, 2 December 2019

10 ‘the network of obligation which binds everyone else’: Andrew Gimson, p.43

11 ‘don’t be arrogant’: The Times, 10 November 2012

12 ‘the temptations of Oxford life’: Andrew Gimson, p.55

Chapter 3: Uncertain Star

1 uninterested in fame: Andrew Gimson, p.62

2 the repetition of old jokes: Tony Young, interview with author

3 ‘Humour is a utensil’: Sonia Purnell, p.3

4 a future prime minister: Matthew Leeming, interview with author

5 ‘to coddle the self-deception of the stooge’: The Oxford Myth, Rachel Johnson, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (1988) pp.68–69

6 ‘Congratulations man’: Andrew Gimson, p.64

7 ‘we became namby-pambies’: Sebastian Shakespeare, Daily Mail, 20 July 2019

8 ‘the dinners being incredibly drunken’: The Telegraph, 28 May 2013

9 The article was dropped: Andrew Gimson, p.74

10 ‘the English genre of bogus self-deception’: Andrew Gimson, p.72

11 ‘you pick up a load of self-knowledge’: The Oxford Myth, Rachel Johnson

12 the marriage had already been agreed: Sebastian Shakespeare, interview with author

13 ‘addicted to the joy of hurtling myself down the slopes’: The Telegraph, 21 February 2011

14 ‘He’s rapacious’: Matthew Leeming, interview with author

15 ‘a buffoon and an idler’: The Guardian, 6 October 2019

16 Boris was unaware of the brewing problems: Matthew Leeming, interview with author

17 ‘He put a whole new interpretation on the word “Godfather”’: Stanley Johnson, interview with author

Chapter 4: Awakening

1 trying to make an impromptu speech: Andrew Gimson, p.87

2 ‘he would have limped to the altar’: Andrew Gimson, p.86

3 ‘Boris told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp’: Andrew Gimson, p.116

4 that was inaccurate: Max Hastings, interview with author

5 a team of people tasked with rebutting negative Boris stories: Sonia Purnell, p.118

6 Christopher Booker and Richard Littlejohn: Charlie Pownall, interview with author

7 ‘frightening focus and drive’: Sonia Purnell, p.4

8 ‘He’s married to his job’: Allegra Mostyn-Owen, Evening Standard, 29 May 2012

9 ‘a manic high’ in London: Matthew Leeming, interview with author

10 the Virgina Woolf-type: Roger Clark, interview with author

11 At the law school she was seen with a boyfriend: Matthew Leeming, interview with author

12 offering the ‘stolen’ gems to Hatton Garden dealers: Daily Mail, 4 April 2009

13 ‘conclusions that the British thought had been explicitly rejected’: The Telegraph, 16 September 2017

14 description of Boris’s temper: Sonia Purnell, pp.181, 219, 229, 384

15 ‘Allegra is too demanding’: Charlotte Wahl, interview with author

16 ‘that was the end of the relationship’: Andrew Gimson, p.87

17 his support of Thatcher was a ‘ghastly moment’: Andrew Gimson, p.112

18 ‘the most ruthless, ambitious person I have ever met’: The Sunday Times, 18 September 2011

19 strip away the veto rights of individual states: Andrew Gimson, p.103; Heathcote Williams, p.49; Sonia Purnell, p.128

20 Both Hurd and Hastings robustly denied Moore’s assertion: Andrew Gimson, p.104

21 ‘rather weird sense of power’: Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, October 2005

22 ‘Suck and you’ll find’: Matthew Leeming, interview with author

23 ‘humourless self-deprecation beneath the idiotic flamboyance’: Andrew Gimson, p.119

24 ‘As a virtue, loyalty to friends has its limits’: Max Hastings, Editor: An Inside Story of Newspapers, Macmillan (2002), p.274

25 would destroy the career of any other man or woman in journalism, let alone in government’: The Times, 19 July 2018

26 ‘often really I couldn’t follow what was going on at all’: Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4

27 people won’t be able to tell the difference’: Daily Mail, 25 March 2013; ‘Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise’, Michael Cockerell, BBC Two (2013)

Chapter 5: Defying the Critics

1 ‘I certainly did not attempt to find the address’: Mail on Sunday, 16 July 1995

2 ‘a penchant for comedy is an almost insuperable obstacle to achieving high political office’: Max Hastings, p.273

3 ‘temperamental, tiresome and nauseatingly eccentric and simply just obnoxious’: Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, Tom Bower, HarperCollins (2006) p.144

4 ‘I love Barbara. I venerate her’: Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, p.390

5 ‘entrusting a Ming vase to the hands of an ape’: The Telegraph, 4 May 2012

6 new readers did not rank among those he valued as the elite: Rod Liddle, interview with author

7 sacked for viewing porn on a school computer: The Times, 15 March 2008; Evening Standard, 18 June 2010

8 ‘The blessed sponge of amnesia has wiped the chalkboard of history’: Andrew Gimson, p.157

9 ‘I want to have my cake and eat it’: Andrew Gimson, p.156

10 ‘I have actually been questioned about it on a TV game show’: Andrew Gimson, p.142

11 he would remain at the Spectator: Andrew Gimson, p.143

12 ‘I had a wife, beaming up at me from the front row’: Boris Johnson, Lend Me Your Ears, HarperCollins (2003), p.13 and p.46

13 ‘the impersonation becomes the man’: Evening Standard, 14 July 2000

14 ‘I can’t think of a higher compliment’: The Sunday Times, 27 May 2001

Chapter 6: ‘It’s all a mess’

1 ‘He only agreed to make you happy. He didn’t mean it’: Toby Young, interview with author

2 ‘I would never, ever, live with a man, let alone get engaged’: Daily Mail, 4 April 2009

3 ‘You are the first woman friend I have ever had’: Mail on Sunday, 27 March 2016

4 ‘he wants to be loved by the entire world’: Mail on Sunday, 27 March 2016

5 ‘confined’ to one woman: Mail on Sunday, 27 March 2016

6 ‘He was right’: Boris Johnson, Lend Me Your Ears, p.236

7 £500-worth of unpaid parking tickets and congestion charges: Daily Mail, 3 June 2011

8 Four children could not be privately educated on a parliamentary salary: The Sunday Times, 15 December 2002; The Sunday Times, 19 October 2008

9 ‘Hey, Dave, what’s the plan’: For the Record, David Cameron, HarperCollins (2019), p.60

10 ‘Now I have an extravagance that knows no bounds’: Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, pp.319–320

11 Boris, it appeared, was swooning for Mary: Andrew Gimson, p.176

12 ‘I am a juggler. I can have it all’: Andrew Gimson, p.165

13 it provoked universal roars of laughter – except from Boris: Fraser Nelson, The Daily Telegraph, 4 May 2012

14 ‘That great prodigious tree in the forest’: The Times, 25 May 2008

15 ‘Conrad bought a nice big chocolate cake’: Rod Liddle, interview with author

16 ‘I cannot comment on his present predicament’: Evening Standard, 30 November 2007; Evening Standard, 7 December 2007

17 ‘I’m looking forward to meeting the Ribbentrop brothers’: Rod Liddle, interview with author

18 ‘I just felt Boris was running the whole place as a knocking shop’: Sonia Purnell, p.247

19 She was accused by some of selfishly wrecking Boris’s marriage: Andrew Gimson, p.225

20 ‘There comes a point where you’ve got to put the dynamite under your own tracks’: Conservative Heartland 2001, cited in Andrew Gimson, p.260

21 Monogamy did not appeal to him: Evening Standard, 8 May 2008

22 Boris never fulfilled his threat: Daily Mail, 10 October 2012; Daily Mail, 1 July 2016

23 ‘so puffed up with their own egos they end up living in a parallel universe’: Daily Mail, 11 November 2004

24 ‘There were things in the papers yesterday’: Andrew Gimson, p.219

25 ‘He regards himself as rather ugly’: Daily Mail, 8 September 2018

Chapter 7: Downfall and Resurrection

1 The threat, Boris would recall, forced Cameron to declare his candidacy: The Telegraph, 5 April 2010

2 ‘I am backing David Cameron’s campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest’: The Independent, 5 October 2005

3 ‘I think British society is designed like that’: Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 30 October 2005

4 ‘It was as though a cosmic injustice had occurred’: Daily Mail, 16 July 2010

5 ‘girly swots who wasted their time at university’: Daily Mail, 12 June 2013

6 Boris is ‘not nice’: Daily Mail, 1 July 2016

7 The dent cost £5,000 to repair: Daily Mail, 1 June 2007; Evening Standard, 31 July 2007

8 Marina was doorstepped and Fazackerley resigned from the supplement: News of the World, 2 April 2006

9 ‘It’s vastly superior to our approach’: Daily Mail, 19 July 2007

10 ‘The political risk for me is considerable. Ken is the favourite’: The Guardian, 5 July 2007

11 a supporter of immigration and diversity: Evening Standard, 16 July 2007

12 Few gave him much chance against Livingstone’s machine: Daily Mail, 17 July 2007

13 her modern country should not be compared to the Tory party’s antics: The Telegraph, 5 April 2010

14 £1.9 million from Ken Livingstone to build a campaign headquarters: Evening Standard, 5 February 2008

15 ‘the most dismal awakening of my life’: Evening Standard, 31 August 2007

16 ‘executed with the scimitar by a beautiful black woman’: Evening Standard, 24 August 2007

17 ‘Boris will strip it away from them’: The Guardian, 17 July 2007

18 ‘I reserve the right in the course of this campaign to make jokes’: Daily Mail, 4 September 2007

19 ‘It’s a great utensil for bringing people together’: Evening Standard, 3 September 2007

20 earning money from journalism, TV appearances and after-dinner speeches: Daily Mail, 9 November 2007

21 ‘I want to give Londoners a bus they can be proud of’: The Guardian, 18 May 2010

22 The true cost would be at least £70 million: Evening Standard, 13 December 2007

23 his appeal to traditional Tory outer-London boroughs: The Sunday Times, 12 August 2007

24 ‘I am laying down my pen and taking up the sword full time’: Evening Standard, 10 January 2008

25 Construction of new homes in 2008 would fall: Evening Standard, 23 June 2008

26 increased rates by 152 per cent over his eight years: Evening Standard, 10 March 2008

27 Many were running 80 per cent empty: Evening Standard, 17 January 2008

28 traffic levels had surged back to pre-charge levels: Evening Standard, 11 August 2008

29 Boris was told not to speak about social justice: Evening Standard, 29 September 2008

30 ‘You’ll always surprise people’: The Times, 7 May 2012

31 ‘Not that I know of’: The Telegraph, 12 April 2009

32 three undisclosed children from previous relationships: Daily Mail, 4 April 2008

33 ‘the “democratic right” to insist on its leaders taking no mistresses’: Daily Mail, 8 September 2018

34 Since 2000, the LDA had spent £2.6 billion: Evening Standard, 3 April 2008

35 enjoyed a holiday to Nigeria paid from public funds: Evening Standard, 24 January 2008

36 Jasper had given her £100,000: Evening Standard, 4 March 2008

37 ‘There is something chilling and Stalinist about his refusal to comply’: Evening Standard, 18 December 2007

38 ‘entirely inappropriate’ and ‘improper’: Evening Standard, 16 July 2009

39 ‘I’m absolutely 100 per cent anti-racist’: Evening Standard, 28 December 2007

40 Johnson suffered only marginal criticism in the newspaper: The Guardian, 21 April 2008

41 ‘I’m working to get Ken unelected’: The Guardian, 30 April 2008

42 the Standard’s poll placed Boris 12 per cent ahead of Livingstone: Evening Standard, 17 March 2008

43 some polls put Livingstone slightly ahead: The Sunday Times, 20 April 2008

44 reported uncertainty about the outcome: The Guardian, 17 July 2019

45 Among other Tories who refused to vote for Boris was Michael Portillo: Evening Standard, 9 May 2008

46 At the end of Boris’s speech, his toast was to ‘Mayor Leavingsoon’: Daily Mail, 9 April 2008

47 Boris himself still feared he might lose the prize: The Times, 27 March 2008

48 He pledged to ban alcohol from the Tube: Evening Standard, 11 April 2008; Evening Standard, 3 April 2008; Evening Standard, 16 April 2008

49 He also failed to name a single member of his future team: The Telegraph, 29 March 2008

50 Diamond had earned £21 million in the previous year: Evening Standard, 15 April 2008

51 Boris would make ‘a mess of the whole thing’: The Guardian, 1 May 2008

52 he would try to inherit his son’s seat in Henley: The Telegraph, 3 May 2008

53 Decay, the newspaper predicted, would spread: The Guardian, 9 May 2009

54 Parker assumed that Boris would cut ribbons: Evening Standard, 27 May 2008

55 Milton understood how to negotiate with Whitehall: Evening Standard, 6 May 2008

56 ‘If you put that I was forced to do it by some fucking Cameron bollocks, I’ll be extremely annoyed’: The Times, 6 December 2008

57 ‘You get screeds of abuse or praise’: The Telegraph, 7 June 2008

58 ‘All the riches, the power and the glory are never quite enough, it seems’: Sonia Purnell, p.5

59 ‘valuable houses or large tracts of land’: Sonia Purnell, p.5

60 he read Greek poems in the original: The Spectator, 10 September 2005

ACT II – ‘THE FIRST TIME HE’D HAD TO WORK IN HIS LIFE’

Chapter 8: The Challenge

1 a warning of the new peril of his life in the spotlight: Evening Standard, 12 May 2008

2 dogged by allegations of partisanship, chaos, overstaffing and financial mismanagement: Evening Standard, 3 February 2009

3 phoney ‘diversity’ projects: Evening Standard, 6 August 2008

4 ‘tens of millions of pounds’ had been misspent: Evening Standard, 12 November 2008; Evening Standard, 16 July 2008; The Sunday Times, 8 June 2008

5 Beale had authorised Livingstone’s first-class air fares: Evening Standard, 19 June 2009; Daily Mail, 2 April 2012

6 Lewis resigned: Daily Mail, 5 July 2008; Daily Mail, 8 July 2008

7 ‘I really regretted it’: The Guardian, 16 April 2011

8 ‘The autumn will decide whether he can really govern the city’: Evening Standard, 19 August 2008

9 ‘an inexperienced blunderer’: The Guardian, 7 July 2008

10 Boris agreed to Parker’s departure: Evening Standard, 15 July 2008; Evening Standard, 19 August 2008

11 All those deaths … had been ‘endlessly ignored’: Evening Standard, 11 July 2008; Evening Standard, 23 April 2009

12 ‘more intellectually challenging than anything I’ve ever done’: The Guardian, 9 August 2008

13 ‘there is no substitute for me, as directly elected mayor, being in charge’: Evening Standard, 21 August 2008

14 Boris alternated between jokes and seriousness to steady his administration: The Guardian, 9 August 2008

15 ‘My job is to translate into action the ten ideas Boris has while he cycles to City Hall’: Evening Standard, 8 September 2008

16 the only realistic tenant was West Ham, a local club: Evening Standard, 10 June 2008; Evening Standard, 20 June 2008

17 ‘No one has broken Britain and no one ever will’: The Telegraph, 19 August 2008; Evening Standard, 20 August 2008

18 his eight-times grandfather was George II of England: Daily Mail, 21 August 2008

19 ‘there are times when you have to take a stand’: The Times, 28 August 2008

Chapter 9: Exposing Vipers

1 Tony Blair … had created London’s housing crisis: Evening Standard, 16 October 2009

2 Charles invited the mayor to Clarence House: Evening Standard, 12 June 2008

3 ‘drab and featureless … phallocratic buildings’: Evening Standard, 24 February 2009

4 ‘This fetish for tall buildings anywhere and everywhere’: The Sunday Times, 11 May 2008

5 Was the mayor, some wondered, persuaded by the last person he spoke to?: Evening Standard, 6 August 2008

6 ‘will be wonderful for one hundred years’: The Guardian, 9 August 2008

7 allowed a high-rise luxury development in Doon Street, Lambeth: Evening Standard, 25 July 2008; Evening Standard, 26 August 2008

8 Developers were also burdened by lower house prices and rents south of the river: Evening Standard, 6 January 2009

9 ‘He doesn’t do nasty,’ Tony Travers realised: The Guardian, 9 December 2008

10 ‘If you’re interested in getting something done, by God you focus on the detail’: The Guardian, 16 April 2011

11 ‘They would pay taxes,’ he explained: Evening Standard, 10 March 2009

12 ‘It’s about people who are struggling to put bread on the table’: The Sunday Times, 15 February 2015

13 He even professed enthusiasm for electric cars: The Telegraph, 2 December 2008

14 His proof in 2009 was to decide the fate of the Metropolitan Police: Evening Standard, 29 September 2008; The Telegraph, 12 April 2009

15 Blair was under suspicion: Daily Mail, 28 July 2008

16 ‘a yank on the steering wheel and that’s what I intend to provide’: The Times, 23 December 2008

17 ‘because Boris’s hair was combed’: Evening Standard, 2 November 2009

18 He would later call the Tory Party ‘wholly corrupt’: Evening Standard, 22 December 2008

19 the closure of Green’s email address: Daily Mail, 28 November 2008

20 He’d missed the bigger picture: Len Duvall, interview with author

21 Stephenson was the ‘safe pair of hands’ and got the job: Evening Standard, 26 January 2009

Chapter 10: Birth of ‘Borisism’

1 They were searching for a new house: Evening Standard, 21 January 2009; Evening Standard, 28 May 2009

2 ‘Don’t get carried away by neo-socialist claptrap’: Evening Standard, 23 September 2008; Evening Standard, 1 October 2008; Evening Standard, 27 October 2008

3 he spoke of a rival to the Eiffel Tower: The Sunday Times, 25 October 2009

4 ‘I saw him in the lift’: Evening Standard, 2 February 2010

5 the life opportunities of disadvantaged children were crushed: The Telegraph,18 July 2010

6 He was to be no longer automatically ridiculed as a buffoon: The Telegraph,17 March 2009; Evening Standard, 23 April 2009; The Telegraph, 26 October 2009; The Telegraph, 15 March 2010

7 ‘has emerged as a more interesting and appealing politician’: The Guardian, 30 April 2009

8 a new headquarters in Newham: Neale Coleman, interview with author

9 Livingstone had committed the same money three times over: Evening Standard, 5 November 2008

10 That was Livingstone’s legacy to Boris: Ibid

11 Brown still refused to pay £1.4 billion for the repairs: Evening Standard, 24 February 2009

12 ‘gambling with the fortunes of the capital’: Evening Standard, 25 November 2008; The Telegraph, 25 November 2008

13 buy land and underground access along the route: Evening Standard, 4 December 2008

14 The money should be spent on restoring the Tube: Evening Standard, 28 April 2009

15 a breach of his election pledge: Evening Standard: 4 September 2008

16 over 70 per cent would be interested: The Sunday Times, 15 November 2009

17 Cameron could not be ousted, but he could be embarrassed: The Telegraph, 25 April 2009

Chapter 11: The Messiah Complex

1 Goldman Sachs had not been bailed out: The Telegraph, 19 October 2009

2 ‘First they came for the bankers and I said nothing’: Evening Standard, 12 August 2011

3 ‘We are hostile to risk and more hostile to reward’: The Telegraph, 6 February 2012; The Telegraph, 20 May 2013

4 A trip to Brussels three weeks earlier had aggravated his fears: The Telegraph, 27 July 2011

5 Neither the Labour government nor Whitehall were combating the EU’s grab: The Telegraph, 7 September 2009

6 No EU country was training Britons to become nurses without payment: The Telegraph, 22 March 2010

7 ‘Thanks a lot for your help this week, you cunt’: Evening Standard, 9 October 2009

8 ‘La vendetta è un piatto che va mangiato freddo’: The Times, 20 October 2009

9 ‘endlessly trying like wasps in a jam jar to be the survivor’: The Guardian, 18 April 2011

10 ‘Messiah complex’: The Times, 5 October 2009; Evening Standard, 5 October 2009

11 copy Paris’s rent-a-bike scheme: Evening Standard, 12 September 2012

12 No ‘bike file’ existed: Kulveer Ranger, interview with author

13 6,000 bikes ‘at no cost to the taxpayer’: Evening Standard, 12 August 2009

14 ‘I’m not very big on self-doubt’: The Guardian, 18 April 2011

15 ‘I will change my name by deed poll to Barclays’: Evening Standard, 11 December 2009

16 Builders were going bankrupt: Evening Standard, 24 February 2009

17 ‘I’ll stop this madness’: Evening Standard, 23 February 2009

18 ‘see the glowing red lights on cranes’: Tony Travers, interview with author

Chapter 12: ‘I’m standing by to fill the gap’

1 Cheekily, Boris wrote the following day an article praising Cameron: The Telegraph,12 April 2010

2 ‘like so many hermaphroditic parrotfish’: The Telegraph, 17 May 2010

3 ‘I hope I can survive your endorsement’: For the Record, David Cameron, pp.357–358

4 he was keen to embarrass others to save face: Unleashing Demons: The Inside Story of Brexit, Craig Oliver, Hodder & Stoughton (2016) p.34

5 ‘any delay is a false economy’: Evening Standard, 6 September 2010

6 ‘one day the truth will catch up with him’: Evening Standard, 2 February 2010

7 returned to the house to see his children: Daily Mail, 18 October 2010

8 ‘block it and return to your crease’: Daily Mail, 21 October 2008

9 ‘the morals of an alley cat’: The Spectator, 30 September 2019

10 ‘impossibly far from being prime minister’: Daily Mail, 16 July 2010

11 ‘I’ve got more chance of being reincarnated’: Evening Standard, 16 July 2010

12 a man craving love and attention: The Times, 21 July 2010

13 ‘opportunities for fresh disasters’: The Guardian, 16 April 2011

14 to save £5 billion over four years: Evening Standard, 20 October 2010

15 4,232 TfL desks, he claimed, were sold: The Telegraph, 5 October 2011

16 failing to master the details: Evening Standard, 15 June 2010; Evening Standard, 17 March 2011

17 Boris declared he would run for a second term: Evening Standard, 10 September 2010

18 about 14 per cent voted to strike: Evening Standard, 7 September 2010

19 ‘A lily-livered government’: Daily Mail, 5 May 2011

20 ‘there’s always the chance of Boris becoming our ambassador in Pristina, I suppose’: Evening Standard, 18 November 2010

21 he blamed the BBC: The Telegraph, 29 October 2010

22 ‘It’s just not important anymore’: The Telegraph, 8 November 2010

23 a £3 billion annual housing budget and 625 hectares of land: Evening Standard, 1 December 2010

24 ‘Everyone thought it was crazy and too expensive’: Neale Coleman, interview with author

25 As a libertarian: The Telegraph, 8 March 2010

26 He associated his critics with antisocial extremists: The Telegraph, 13 September 2010

27 British Airways’ refusal to allow a female employee to wear her small crucifix: Evening Standard, 19 April 2012; Evening Standard, 20 June 2011; The Telegraph, 25 June 2011; The Telegraph, 12 March 2012

28 Revisiting his adultery was unappealing: The Guardian, 19 July 2011; The Telegraph, 19 July 2011

29 ‘convinced that the gaffe-prone Johnson would make a hash of it’: The Guardian, 13 May 2011

30 ‘I think I am very lucky and happy’: Evening Standard, 27 February 2012

31 57 per cent to 43 per cent: Evening Standard, 5 July 2011

32 ‘mission accomplished’: The Telegraph, 21 March 2011

33 £65,000 plus long holidays and other perks: Evening Standard, 9 May 2011; The Telegraph, 22 June 2011

34 ‘Greasing is the key to success in life’: Evening Standard, 6 July 2011

35 ‘very distinguished career in counter-terrorism’: The Guardian, 10 April 2009

36 At first, Boris denied making any comments to Cameron: The Times, 4 February 2009

37 Boris had given the committee false information: Evening Standard, 12 February 2009

38 he was exposed as unreliable and unwise: Evening Standard, 12 February 2009; Daily Mail, 13 February 2009; The Times, 5 March 2009

39 ‘I bet that virtually the whole of Fleet Street was involved’: The Telegraph, 11 April 2011

40 Wallis’s double relationship with Stephenson was damning: Daily Mail, 15 July 2011

Chapter 13: Playing with Fire

1 ‘I felt ashamed’: Evening Standard, 9 August 2011

2 They had, he said, performed ‘brilliantly’: Evening Standard, 11 August 2011

3 Cameron refused to cancel the police cuts: For the Record, David Cameron, p.300

4 He blamed London’s ‘chillingly bad’ schools: The Telegraph, 15 August 2011; The Guardian, 24 March 2012

5 ‘The best-paid column I’ve never written’: The Telegraph, 22 February 2016

6 ‘I don’t think I’ll do another big job in politics after this’: The Telegraph, 5 October 2011; Evening Standard, 4 October 2011

7 Boris praised Cameron for ‘playing a blinder’: Daily Mail, 19 December 2011

8 Cameron swallowed his irritation about being upstaged: The Times, 10 January 2012

Chapter 14: ‘Jealousies and paranoias’

1 ‘It doesn’t matter where you come from as long as you know where you’re going’: The Times, 15 March 2014

2 They disliked the man and denied there was a message: The Times, 5 May 2012

3 That, said Boris, was unlikely: Evening Standard, 25 January 2012

4 his exposure as a hypocrite hit his poll ratings: Daily Mail, 27 February 2012

5 Boris pulled 6 points ahead in the polls: The Times, 12 April 2012

6 ‘Two arrogant posh boys who don’t know the price of milk’: The Guardian, 24 April 2012

7 ‘we can’t change the country’: The Telegraph, 14 May 2012

8 Boris clasped his enemies close to defuse the antagonism: Evening Standard, 18 March 2013; ‘Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise’, Michael Cockerell, BBC Two (2013)

9 ‘It is dismaying that he has become the most popular Conservative in Britain’: Daily Mail, 5 May 2012

10 ‘People say I want to be an MP’: For the Record, David Cameron, p.358

11 ‘That’s the awful fact’: Daily Mail, 19 June 2012

Chapter 15: ‘Alexander the Great’

1 ‘The whole thing,’ he roared, ‘is magnificent and bonkers’: The Telegraph, 30 July 2012

2 The prime minister was a bystander watching the mayor’s triumph: Evening Standard, 11 September 2012

3 ‘She will just bulldoze her way into anything because she has that self-belief’: ‘When Boris Met Jennifer’, John Ware, ITV Exposure (2011)

4 ‘Boris is not a prime minister’: Daily Mail, 3 August 2012

5 a ‘lachrymose lunch (his tears not mine)’: The Spectator, 27 July 2019

6 ‘No point in trying to contain Boris’: Daily Mail, 8 October 2012

7 The war, Boris concluded, was ‘a tragic mistake’: The Telegraph, 16 June 2014

8 The children won: For the Record, David Cameron, p.247

9 ‘basically people regard politicians as a bunch of shysters’: Boris on CNBC TV

10 ‘Cheque enclosed’: Evening Standard, 30 January 2013

11 a ‘welsher, one who does not pay his debts’: Daily Mail, 1 July 2016

12 ‘A man’s gotta know his limitations’: The Telegraph, 5 December 2012

Chapter 16: ‘Transparently self-defeating policies’

1 Closer integration of the eurozone nations, she believed, was vital: The Times, 12 December 2012

2 Leaving ‘would not be the end of the world’: Daily Mail, 17 December 2012

3 ‘neither particularly necessary nor particularly desirable nor particularly likely’: Evening Standard, 17 January 2013

4 Only the Tories, he said, could deliver UKIP’s ambition to leave the EU: The Telegraph, 29 April 2013

5 Britain’s fate depended on renegotiating its relationship with the EU: The Telegraph, 13 May 2013

6 ‘We must threaten to leave if the EU refuses to give us what we want’: The Times, 10 May 2013

7 ‘I’d have to declare an interest’: ‘When Boris Met Jennifer’, John Ware, ITV Exposure (2011)

8 ‘terrible confusion about the comments’: Daily Mail, 16 June 2011

9 the BBC was reporting Leveson in approving terms: The Telegraph, 18 March 2013; The Telegraph, 3 December 2012

10 ‘blind-eye culture’: The Telegraph, 5 February 2016

11 Patten, demanded Boris, should apologise ‘on his knees’: The Telegraph, 12 November 2012

12 he believed that Boris could not be trusted near the nuclear button: Daily Mail, 25 March 2013

13 ‘a private life too baroque for one who aspires to the highest office’: Daily Mail, 30 March 2013

14 ‘what’s the world coming to?’: The Times, 26 March 2013; Daily Mail, 26 March 2013

15 ‘Don’t give them oxygen’: The Times, 15 March 2014

16 He opposed HS2, the high speed train to the north: Evening Standard, 8 July 2013; Daily Mail, 27 September 2013

17 The annual bill would be £20 million, but the headlines were hopeful: Moore Stephens report 2017 GLA, Budget sub-committee 13 December 2017 p.5 Boris Johnson Briefing

18 Rose by 65 per cent in 2015: The Times, 28 December 2015

19 only half were under construction: Evening Standard, 16 April 2014

20 rents up by 20 per cent in one year: The Telegraph, 16 October 2014

21 ‘Don’t collapse in a xenophobic frenzy’: The Telegraph, 21 October 2013

22 69 per cent of new flats in London were sold to foreigners over the previous two years: The Sunday Times, 16 March 2014

23 Building statistics, everyone knew, were totally unreliable: The Times, 15 March 2014; The Guardian, 27 December 2014; The Guardian, 26 May 2016

24 256 towers were proposed, approved or under construction: The Guardian, 13 March 2014; Evening Standard, 4 April 2014

25 building over 400 towers: Jenkins, New London Architecture; Evening Standard, 15 March 2016

26 why he had travelled to California and who had accompanied him: Independent review of the Garden Bridge project by Margaret Hodge, London Government, 7 April 2017

Chapter 17: ‘A blithering, Bullingdon, Bollinger-drinking buffoon’

1 ‘some cut-price edition of David Cameron’: Daily Mail, 16 October 2013

2 Boris posed as the coy, undecided bride: Daily Mail, 2 October 2013

3 ‘We have sold you our offices of the secret service’: Evening Standard, 14 October 2013

4 Cameron and Osborne distanced themselves: The Guardian, 28 November 2013; The Telegraph, 3 December 2013; The Telegraph, 13 January 2014

5 Boris hinted that he might after all stand for Parliament in 2015: Daily Mail, 24 April 2014; The Times, 1 March 2014; The Telegraph, 4 March 2014; Evening Standard, 14 March 2014; The Times, 7 August 2014

6 he relied on focus groups and his trusted friends: The Guardian, 19 April 2014

7 ‘It’s all going horribly well’: The Guardian, 22 May 2014

8 a press release issued on Boris’s orders announcing Gilligan’s employment. Len Duvall, interview with author; The Guardian, 26 November 2013

9 ‘pussyfooting and fannying around’: Evening Standard, 11 December 2013; Evening Standard, 22 May 2014

10 ‘He played a big part in the success of the Tube’: Daily Mail, 13 March 2014

11 Neither mentioned the ongoing problems at the Yard: The Guardian, 8 June 2015

12 In early 2014, London had 30,085 officers: Evening Standard, 5 February 2014

13 if domestic crime with an injury was included, the increase was even higher: 5 March 2014, Plenary Policing MQT

14 cyber crime and fraud, both ignored by Scotland Yard: The Guardian, 8 June 2015

15 only nine were successfully prosecuted: Evening Standard, 23 July 2014

16 May’s tactics had failed to repatriate large numbers: The Telegraph, 29 July 2013

17 abandoning the power to force suspected terrorists to move from their homes: The Telegraph, 28 February 2015

18 May made no comment about the cannons: Daily Mail, 7 September 2011

19 ‘I am keen to ensure that forces have the tools and powers they need to maintain order on our streets’: 23 January 2014

20 Bookmakers placed her as the favourite as the Tories’ next leader: The Guardian, 22 May 2014

21 The Lib Dems languished at 8 per cent: Evening Standard, 20 June 2014

22 Boris was assured of a global bestseller translated into thirty-six languages: interview with author

23 ‘He lives by narcissism; he will die by it’: The Guardian, 18 October 2013

24 ‘racism, jealousy and political corruption’: Tim Shipman, The Sunday Times, 4 November 2018

25 ‘It was bizarre.’ The Times, 13 June 2019

26 mocking Cameron’s bid to secure EU reforms: The Guardian, 24 June 2014; Anthony Seldon, Mail on Sunday, 6 September 2015

27 Boris was persuaded to accept an offer negotiated by Wallace: The Guardian, 11 August 2014; The Sunday Times, 10 August 2014

28 ‘the first thing he’d do is betray the Tory right’: The Times, 9 August 2014

29 ‘Thank you, no,’ replied Boris: The Times, 28 August 2014

30 ‘I think we should campaign to come out’: Daily Mail, 13 October 2014

31 ‘shows the government’s interest in the east London tech cluster’: Business Insider, 18 October 2019

32 she never asked him to speak again: ‘When Boris Met Jennifer’, John Ware, ITV Exposure (2011)

33 ‘He didn’t want any more suspicious gossip being spread’: ‘When Boris Met Jennifer’, John Ware, ITV Exposure (2019)

34 ‘Please put her on the list … she has been speaking to Boris’: Ibid.

35 ‘to try to play the shots I have as naturally as I can’: The Sunday Times, 15 February 2015

Chapter 18: ‘The next PM will be Miliband if you don’t fucking shut up’

1 ‘loving twisting the knife’: The Times, 31 August 2015; ‘Cameron at 10’ serial, Anthony Seldon, Mail on Sunday

2 admit on Sky TV his aspiration to be the leader: Daily Mail, 23 April 2015

3 ‘That’s what worries me’: The Sunday Times, 3 May 2015

4 ‘We cannot just shrug at the wealth gap’: The Telegraph, 8 June 2015; The Telegraph, 6 July 2015

5 ‘Be prepared to walk away if the EU rejects your terms’: The Times, 2 June 2015; The Telegraph, 11 May 2015

6 Cameron nevertheless accelerated the referendum to 2016: The Telegraph, 14 December 2015

7 ‘There is much, much more that needs to be done’: The Times, 3 February 2016

Chapter 19: The Legacy

1 ‘I think it comes under the heading of getting the ball back over the net’: Evening Standard, 18 June 2015

2 she had refused to license the three water cannons: Evening Standard, 15 July 2015

3 Churchill was sixty-five when he became prime minister: The Telegraph, 13 August 2015

4 he had died in January 2015 before being told he was cleared: Evening Standard, 16 October 2015

5 Bramall had been accused of participating in an orgy: Daily Mail, 19 January 2016

6 the crime detection rate falling by 21 per cent since 2008: Evening Standard, 24 March 2016

7 ‘That turned out to be a very grave mistake’: The Times, 6 March 2019

8 the costs of Whitechapel station were rising by 600 per cent: Crossrail report para2.12 National Audit Office, 3 May 2019

9 ‘white elephant’: Evening Standard, 24 September 2015

10 ‘I fully support the bridge’: Evening Standard, 5 February 2016

11 there was no apparent demand for a footbridge at Temple: Evening Standard, 24 September 2015

12 the bill by the end of eight years was £195 million: Evening Standard, 19 December 2014; Evening Standard; 3 December 2015

13 24,000 new homes might have been built: Evening Standard, 3 March 2016

14 ‘The bloated, bulging light-blocking buildings’: The Observer, 10 April 2016

15 Boris’s protests against the destruction by Muslim extremists of Palmyra: The Telegraph, 28 March 2016

16 ‘to provide a persecuted people with a safe and secure homeland’: The Telegraph, 30 October 2017

17 His visit to Ramallah was cancelled on ‘security grounds’: Evening Standard, 9 November 2015

18 wealthy City denizens stuck in their stationary limousines: Evening Standard, 3 March 2016

19 Livingstone obtained the funding from the Labour government: The Times, 25 March 2019

20 ‘millions more in cuts than the department had planned to be in its final offer’: The Times, 8 June 2019

21 The last thought would prove to be wishful thinking: Evening Standard, 7 August 2016

Chapter 20: ‘He’s ruined my life’

1 ‘a great future outside’: The Telegraph, 8 February 2016

2 Boris was promised a key job in the government, probably Defence: For the Record, David Cameron p.653

3 uncontrolled accumulation of power against which there was no appeal: 11 February 2016

4 ‘legitimise the cause and help detoxify the Brexit brand’: David Cameron, For the Record, p.650

5 the idea that Boris’s ‘opinion matters at all … is absurd’: The Guardian, 17 February 2016

6 ‘a cast of clowns’: The Sunday Times, 16 October 2016

7 he ‘would be a disaster’: Mail on Sunday, 26 February 2017

8 a failing he later admitted: David Cameron, For the Record, p.655

9 Either way, it was win-win: David Cameron, For the Record, p.654

10 ‘It’s just 15 per cent.’ Daily Mail, 24 March 2016; The Guardian, 24 March 2016

11 She did not fear dividing the people or her party: The Telegraph, 4 May 2009

12 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure’: The Telegraph, 14 September 2009

13 The Remain article ‘stuck in my craw to write’: The Sunday Times, 28 February 2016

14 ‘We got absolutely zilch, effectively’: Daily Mail, 24 March 2016

15 ‘He’s just gone outside to say Leave’: Sunday 21 February 2016

16 ‘This is the moment to be brave’: The Telegraph, 22 February 2016

17 He departed without making any attempt to justify himself: Peter John, interview with author

18 inability to ‘distinguish truth from fantasy’: The Times, 25 February 2016

19 ‘kick it really hard in the balls, in which case it will run away’: Evening Standard, 22 March 2016

20 Michael Heseltine attacked Boris for destroying the City and jobs: Daily Mail, 22 February 2016

21 ‘Unfortunately Bush was bluffing’: The Telegraph, 30 April 2016

22 He also adopted an old habit of speaking without pause: The Telegraph, 24 March 2016

23 ‘This is very hard, very hard’: Bernard Jenkin, interview with author

24 ‘If Mr Johnson had the sense of nemesis I suspect he has, he should stop now’: The Times, 25 March 2016

25 Parris saw in the ‘zealots a streak of madness’: The Times,16 April 2016

26 motivated by a desire to be loved by more people: Mail on Sunday, 27 March 2016

27 the referendum’s outcome became less certain: The Times,14 April 2016

28 Boris concluded that Obama was fluent but phoney: 21 October 2008

29 America would never accept rule by the EU: The Telegraph, 14 March 2016

30 ‘a disaster for Boris because Obama is pro-British’: Daily Mail, 23 April 2016; Mail on Sunday, 24 April 2016

31 could not produce a single report proving that Britain would be richer outside the EU: The Times, 23. April 2016; The Sunday Times, 24 April 2016; Daily Mail, 18 April 2016

32 ‘The Remainers think the game is over’: The Telegraph, 25 April 2016

33 an increase of support for Leave and more trust in Boris: The Times, 28 April 2016

34 between £160 million and £248 million a week: The Times, 19 September 2017

35 claiming he would cut immigration to ‘tens of thousands’: The Telegraph, 13 May 2016; The Times, 27 May 2016

36 ‘Deeply maddening’: Craig Oliver, Unleashing Demons: The Inside Story of Brexit, Hodder (2016); Daily Mail, 25 September 2016

37 the longer it is, the more errors are likely’: The Times, 9 July 2018

38 ‘The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods’: The Telegraph, 16 May 2016

39 a wholly untrue story was spread: Daily Mail, 19 May 2016; The Sunday Times, 22 May 2016

40 while secretly enjoying an adulterous affair: Daily Mail, 6 June 2016

41 To his followers, Rudd was desperate: The Times, 10 June 2016

42 ‘Let Thursday be our Independence Day’: The Telegraph, 20 June 2016

43 aligning themselves with liars and racists: Cameron p.687

44 ‘founded on duplicity’: The Oxford Myth, Rachel Johnson, p.70

45 ‘I do not want to be prime minister’: The Telegraph, 11 October 2012; The Sunday Times, 5 June 2016

46 FTSE 100 chiefs earned 150 times more than the ‘forgotten people’: The Telegraph, 27 June 2016

47 ‘inclusive, positive and optimistic message’: The Times, 2 July 2016

Chapter 21: Leadership and Treachery

1 ‘inclusive, positive and optimistic message’: The Times, 2 July 2016

2 ‘He’s completely untrustworthy’: The Times, 28 June 2016

3 ‘forty new trade deals’: The Times, 15 November 2018

4 ‘I was a fool to trust him’: Mail on Sunday, 3 July 2016

5 He accused Boles of ‘stealing’ his phone: Mail on Sunday, 23 October 2016

6 ‘I did not want it’: Daily Mail, 2 July 2016

7 ‘if this essentially brutal buffoon became prime minister’: Daily Mail, 1 July 2016

ACT III – THE CABINET

Chapter 22: ‘We’re being stitched up’

1 ‘I want this to be your opportunity to show you can be the good Boris’: Daily Mail, 23 May 2019

2 ‘The Foreign Office has had its limbs amputated’: The Times, 16 October 2018

3 ‘Institutionally, the Foreign Office is a bit timid’: Prospect, 15 October 2018

4 ‘diplomacy is the art of letting other people have your way’: ‘Inside the Foreign Office’, BBC TV doc, 7 December 2018

5 ‘need to erase the gaffes’: The Telegraph, 15 July 2016

6 Boris had hoped Leave would lose: Daily Mail, 23 September 2016

7 Baker assumed that Duncan now wanted to replace Boris: Steve Baker, interview with author

8 Britain would stay in the single market: Daily Mail, 23 November 2016; The Telegraph, 5 December 2018

9 ‘probably’ leave the single market: The Times, 16 November 2016

10 with friends on the Commons terrace: Daily Mail, 17 August 2016; The Telegraph, 15 August 2016

11 only 16 per cent approved of May’s performance on Brexit: The Times, 30 September 2016

12 ‘If the ball comes loose from the back of the scrum’: Financial Times, September 2016

13 defended Turkey’s right to reintroduce the death penalty: Daily Mail, 28 September 2016

14 ‘I’m Boris’s pooper-scooper’: The Times, 5 November 2016

15 ‘Complete baloney, absolute baloney’: Daily Mail, 23 September 2016

16 Angela Merkel told Boris publicly he was wrong: The Times, 19 November 2016

17 ‘I was not particularly amused about this’: The Times, 19 November 2016

18 ‘a fake foreign minister’: The Times, 17 March 2017

19 ‘coming to the end of her tether’: Mail on Sunday, 20 November 2016

20 Niblett avoided finding fault with Simon McDonald: Institute of Government, 4 June 2018

21 he supported both for attacking the murderous ISIS groups: The Times, 3 August 2016

22 ‘It is better sometimes to have a tyrant than not to have a ruler at all’: The Times, 27 January 2017

23 Boris supported military intervention but Obama refused: The Times, 7 September 2016

24 ‘Russophobic hysteria’: The Telegraph, 13 October 2016

25 She would not allow the Foreign Secretary to stand on principle: The Telegraph, 2 December 2016

26 he was cheered by the officials and politicians in the audience: The Telegraph, 12 December 2016

27 Boris refused to back down: The Times, 8 December 2016

28 ‘It’s time to call off the dogs or Boris will snap’: The Sunday Times, 11 December 2016

29 ‘any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump’: The Times, 14 October 2018

30 ‘There is every reason to be positive about a liberal guy from New York’: The Times, 16 November 2016

31 Boris refused to sign an EU declaration: The Times, 17 January 2017

32 the negotiations for the exit terms and the future trade relationship should be simultaneous: Bill Cash, interview with the author

33 ‘another pratfall’: The Times, 13 April 2017

34 urging May to call a snap general election: Betting the House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election, Tim Ross and Tom McTague, Biteback Publishing (2017)

35 ‘A buffoon and an idler’: The Guardian, 7 October 2019

36 to urge him to bid for the leadership: The Sunday Times, 24 September 2017; Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem, Tim Shipman, HarperCollins (2017)

Chapter 23: ‘Boris is Boris’

1 unemployment was the lowest for forty-two years: The Telegraph, 19 September 2017

2 ‘In spite of Brexit … ’: The Telegraph, 4 August 2017

3 enjoying zero tariffs and frictionless trade: The Sunday Times, 18 June 2017

4 Boris’s chance to be prime minister ‘came and went last year’: The Telegraph, 15 September 2017

5 ‘Boris seems done for’: The Times, 13 July 2017

6 ‘inspires derision among Britain’s allies’: The Times, 14 February 2018

7 ‘My Brexit Vision’: The Telegraph, 16 September 2017

8 ‘Our destiny will be in our own hands’: The Telegraph, 21 January 2017

9 ‘Boris is Boris’: The Telegraph, 19 September 2017

10 ‘I am wrong. I am sorry’: Daily Mail, 25 April 2018

11 ‘me driving 100 mph and crashing into a brick wall’: The Times, 8 January 2017

12 ‘a noted clown’: Prospect 9 July 2018

13 ‘took Europe to its darkest period’: The Times, 16 October 2018

14 ‘I accept that my remarks could have been clearer’: The Times, 8 November 2017

15 ‘I apologise for the distress, for the suffering’: The Times, 13 November 2017

16 Inevitably he failed: The Times, 8 December 2017

17 she feared the talks could collapse: The Times, 24 November 2017

18 He praised May for ‘a fantastic job’: The Telegraph, 15 October 2018; The Sunday Times, 17 December 2017

Chapter 24: ‘God, she’s awful’

1 ‘It’s a very, very good thought’: The Telegraph, 5 June 2018

2 ‘an avalanche of lies and disinformation’: The Sunday Times, 8 April 2018

3 could not understand the details of his own finance bill: Craig Mackinlay, interview with author

4 The three portrayed the ‘rabid’ Brexiteers as snake-oil salesmen: Daily Mail, 5 February 2018

5 Their fears of ‘betrayal’ by May, he promised, were unfounded: Daily Mail, 21 May 2018

6 ‘The moment of truth’: Daily Mail, 9 June 2018

7 ‘No panic. Pro bono publico. No bloody panic’: The Telegraph, 8 June 2018

8 Even more concessions … could be made to seal an agreement: The Times, 10 July 2018

9 distrust America, trust China and be ambivalent about Russia: The Times, 19 December 2018

10 ‘abandoned any residual aspiration to be viewed as a serious nation’: The Times, 10 July 2018

11 ‘a bossy schoolteacher’: The Telegraph, 13 July 2018

12 one third of Tory Party members supported Boris as leader: The Sunday Times, 22 July 2018; The Times, 7 September 2018

13 ‘Mrs May was gummed by a toothless lion’: The Times, 19 July 2018

14 ‘I want to ditch Chequers not May’: The Telegraph, 15 September 2018

15 ‘looking like letter boxes or bank robbers’: The Telegraph, 8 August 2018

16 ‘This is against my principles’: Daily Mail, 19 September 2013

17 ‘poverty, social exclusion, gender inequality and radicalisation’: The Sunday Times, 17 December 2017

18 they should learn English: The Telegraph, 9 March 2015

19 ‘just need to shut their mouths for the good of diversity’: Daily Mail, 9 August 2018

20 ‘the uniform of medieval patriarchal tyranny’: The Telegraph, 9 August 2018

21 ‘a cynical political opportunist’: The Times, 8 August 2018

22 ‘It is a deliberate bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party’: The Sunday Times, 12 August 2018

23 ‘We need to fight, gently, for free speech’: The Telegraph, 5 November 2018

24 there was no alternative: Daily Mail, 11 August 2018

25 Attacking Boris, she assumed, was her best lifeline: The Telegraph, 28 August 2018

26 Hargrave had collected lurid allegations: The Sunday Times, 9 September 2018

27 ‘looks like a sanctioned hit operation’: The Times, 10 September 2018

28 ‘this is the political end of Boris Johnson’: The Times, 10 September 2018

29 ‘the tide of holy feminist rage’: The Telegraph, 8 October 2018

30 Only she could navigate Britain into safe waters: Daily Mail, 13 September 2018

31 ‘the best woman for the job’: The Telegraph, 21 September 2018

32 ‘Chuck Chequers and restore basic Conservative values’: The Telegraph, 28 September 2018

33 ‘reckless’: The Sunday Times, 30 September 2018

34 ‘trying to bully a conscientious and determined woman’: The Times, 20 November 2018

35 No attack evoked a whisper from her: The Telegraph, 17 December 2018

36 ‘Sometimes you must take the decision which is fraught with risk’: The Telegraph, 7 December 2018

37 ‘we must not let it become a fantasy for the nation’: Daily Mail, 10 December 2018

38 ‘God, she’s awful’: Anthony Seldon, May at 10, Biteback Publishing (2019), p.510

Chapter 25: Showdown

1 ‘It’s time to compromise’: Mail on Sunday, 27 January 2019

2 ‘No way’: The Telegraph, 11 March 2019

3 ‘the deal the prime minister has done is the best on offer’: The Times, 4 May 2019

4 Sixty-six per cent of members supported a no-deal Brexit: The Times, 18 May 2019

5 Only those in his close circle were allowed to find fault in him: Daily Mail, 7 December 2018

6 ‘I didn’t say anything about Turkey in the referendum’: Daily Mail, 18 January 2019

7 Britain, he still believed, should leave without a deal: The Telegraph, 25 March 2019

8 ‘but he did not understand the detail’: Craig Mackinlay, interview with author

9 ‘he hasn’t even started a campaign’: The Telegraph, 29 March 2019

10 ‘So far we are winning’: The Times, 30 March 2019

11 ‘what really matters is what Boris lacks’: The Times, 25 March 2019

12 ‘so bad and so disheartening that you can scarcely believe it’: The Telegraph, 8 April 2019

13 ‘an extreme hard-right fascist’: Daily Mail, 15 April 2019

14 70 per cent trusted him to win an election: The Times, 18 May 2019

15 the Tories should accept May’s deal: The Times, 20 May 2019

16 ‘He must now unite the centre right’: The Times, 24 May 2019

17 ‘reckless caprice, lazy disregard for principle, weak negotiating skills, moral turpitude’: The Times, 25 May 2019

18 also those desperate to defeat Corbyn: The Telegraph, 7 June 2019

19 ‘The magic, my friends will fade’: The Times, 8 June 2019

20 contest ‘to unite and heal the party’: The Times, 2 July 2019

21 ‘We need a skilled negotiator and deal-maker’: The Times, 10 June 2019

22 he used colourful language to secure the Brexiteers’ votes: The Telegraph, 18 July 2019

23 only Boris could save the party and country from Corbyn: The Guardian, 16 July 2019

24 ‘Who is Boris Johnson?’: BBC Radio 4, 23 July 2019

25 ‘repellently dishonest, xenophobic and politically calculating’: The Guardian, 20 July 2019

26 ‘You’ve got a wild uncontrollable spirit’: Steve Baker, interview with author

27 ‘He’ll be a great prime minister or a great disappointment’: Peter Lilley, interview with author

28 ‘there will be tears before midnight’: The Spectator, 27 July 2019

ACT IV – TRIUMPH AND TURMOIL

Chapter 26: Total Victory

1 undermined Labour’s traditional anti-Tory battle cry: The Times, 3 August 2019

2 ‘complete fantasy’: The Guardian, 4 September 2019

3 a ‘sham’ just to run down the clock: The Guardian, 4 September 2019

4 he would support Corbyn to bring down the government: The Times, 16 August 2019

5 ‘risks destroying the Tory Party and is a policy of insanity’: Belfast Telegraph, 3 September 2019

6 ‘an unelected foul-mouthed oaf throwing his weight around’: The Times, 5 September 2019

7 ‘We are closer to the edge than we may think’: The Times, 7 September 2019

8 Brexit had been about taking back control but had become ‘incoherent’: The Times, 18 December 2018

9 ‘The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets’: Mail on Sunday, 15 September 2019

10 ‘Let’s hear it for the girly swots’: The Times, 5 October 2020

11 Repeating that inaccuracy multiplied the damage to the prime minister: The Times, 3 October 2019

12 58 per cent of voters outrightly distrusted Corbyn: Opinium poll, 6 November 2019

13 ‘He was always a really good friend’: Evening Standard, 7 October 2019

14 ‘you have cast me aside like I’m some gremlin’: Mail on Sunday, 17 November 2019

15 ‘One Nation agenda’: The Times, 14 October 2019

16 ‘I will direct them to throw that form in the bin’: 9 November 2019

17 ‘We will hammer them day after day after day’: The Sunday Times, 27 October 2019

18 ‘a reckless cult’: Matthew Parris, The Times, 2 November 2019

19 Corbyn would lead a coalition: 6 November 2019

20 Hundreds of other cases remained uninvestigated: The Sunday Times, 8 December 2019

21 YouGov predicted a Tory majority of eighty-two: The Times, 29 November 2019

22 ‘He will betray the NHS in a heartbeat’: Evening Standard, 11 November 2019

23 ‘who can be described as a genius’: The Telegraph, 14 December 2019

Chapter 27: Covid I

1 ‘level up’ the nation: The Times, 1 January 2020; 22 February 2020

2 unable even to communicate in proper English: Michael Gove, ‘The privilege of public service’, given as the Ditchley Annual Lecture, 1 July 2020

3 Success rates in previous exams: Prospect, 8 November 2019

4 ‘everyone rises to their position of incompetence’: Rachel Wolf, The Telegraph, 1 January 2020

5 Christopher Whitty … was meeting his deputy, Jonathan Van-Tam: Science and Technology Committee, Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, 24 April 2020, Q.292

6 quickly infect a large number of people: ‘UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011’, Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, 10 November 2011

7 Whitty was monitoring the situation: Government rebuttal to The Sunday Times, 19 April 2020; 23 May 2020

8 They also agreed that a travel ban was worthless: Lawrence Freedman, ‘Strategy for a Pandemic: The UK and COVID-19’, 11 May 2020, available at: https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blog/2020/05/the-uk-and-covid-19)

9 ‘unlikely that transmission [of the virus] to the UK could be prevented’: New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) meeting, 21 January 2020

10 ‘benefit is very unlikely to outweigh the substantial effort, cost and disruption’: NERVTAG meeting, 13 January 2020

11 newly founded Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE): The Conversation, 24 March 2020; ‘Chief Scientific Advisers and their officials: an introduction’, Government Office for Science, January 2020; The Guardian, 27 April 2020; The New York Times, 23 April 2020

12 The scientists met with about ten senior Whitehall officials: Correspondence from Patrick Vallance to Greg Clark, 4 April 2020

13 ‘In SAGE, we try to come up with a consensus view’: The Conversation, 24 March 2020

14 South Korea was ranked sixth and Germany twenty-eighth: Global Health Security Index, October 2019

15 Whitehall’s Exercise Cygnus report: The Telegraph, 28 March 2020

16 ‘not sufficient to cope with the extreme demands’: The Guardian, 24 April 2020

17 Whitty and Vallance adopted the textbook gospel: Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies reports and guidance available at: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies

18 over twenty years’ experience monitoring viruses: NERVTAG meeting, 21 January 2020

19 human-to-human transmission was happening: MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, ‘Report 2: Estimating the potential total number of novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) cases in Wuhan City, China’, 22 January 2020

20 ‘Heightened surveillance, prompt information-sharing and enhanced preparedness are recommended’: Ibid.

21 ‘a reasonable worst-case scenario (RWCS) cannot be made reliably’: Correspondence from Patrick Vallance to Greg Clark, 4 April 2020

22 an annual average of about 17,000 people: Lawrence Freedman, 11 May 2020

23 enhancing rapid case detection will be essential if the outbreak is to be controlled: MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, 22 January 2020

24 ‘not wildly spreading outside China’: Lawrence Freedman, 11 May 2020; World Health Organization (WHO), 28 January 2020

25 knew the truth about the Wuhan outbreak: ‘Coronavirus action plan: a guide to what you can expect across the UK’, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) policy paper, footnotes 1–12

26 failure to acknowledge the importance of Public Health England (PHE): The Financial Times, 24 April 2020

27 You can fit my public health credentials on a postage stamp: The Lancet, 6 April 2013, available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60787-4

28 an NHS lifer at a psychiatric hospital: The Guardian, 12 March 2013

29 the NHS’s Cinderella: The Guardian, 31 May 2020

30 ‘the NHS is well prepared to manage and treat new diseases’: Statement from DHSC and PHE, 22 January 2020

31 ‘Everyone thought they were doing the right thing’: ‘Bernard Jenkin on the long-term consequences for Whitehall after coronavirus’, 30 June 2020, available at: instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/bernard-jenkin-whitehall-after-coronavirus

32 ‘a yet to be identified virus or bacteria’: ‘PHE Infectious Diseases Strategy 2020–2025’, PHE, September 2019

33 little evidence that people without symptoms are infectious to others: ‘Guidance for social or community care and residential settings on COVID-19’, PHE, 25 February 2020 (withdrawn 13 March)

34 there would be a maximum of 20,000 deaths: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 24 April 2020, Q.300

35 ‘We need to have our entire response based on that principle’: The Telegraph, 24 January 2020

36 no one realised the speed of infection: ‘Considerations for non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) policy – timing and sub-national targeting’, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 5 March 2020; ‘Timing and local triggering of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demands’, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, 5 March 2020

37 Care homes were not included in Imperial’s model: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 24 April 2020, Q.827

38 ‘the rather optimistic assumption’: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 24 April 2020, Q.830; Q.838; MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, ‘Summary indicative effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 transmission and mortality’, 2 March 2020; Potential impact of behavioural and social interventions on an epidemic of Covid-19 in the UK, SAGE, 9 March 2020

39 Hancock was advised that Covid presented a ‘low danger’: ZDF interview, 29 January 2020

40 ‘we cannot be 100 per cent certain’: Matt Hancock, statement to Parliament, 27 January 2020

41 the allocation of £40 million to search for a vaccine: Matt Hancock, statement to Parliament, 3 February 2020

42 ‘severely flawed’: ‘Foot and mouth disease 2007: a review and lessons learned’, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 11 March 2008

43 ‘the longer you go on, the more uncertainty there will be’: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 24 April 2020, Q.895

44 ‘a tangled, buggy mess’: The Telegraph, 16 May 2020 (quoting David Richards, founder WANdisco)

45 crude mathematical guesswork: The Telegraph, 16 May 2020; The Critic, 19 May 2020

46 ‘I do not think it was ever possible to predict the course of this epidemic’: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, 10 June 2020, Q.787; Q.827

47 ‘You do not really have a flu model’: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 24 April 2020, Q.891

48 conduct 400–500 tests a day: SAGE reports released 29 May 2020

49 ‘if necessary’ scale up testing: Matt Hancock, statement to Parliament, 27 January 2020

50 considerable exaggerations: ‘PHE reaches crucial step in fully sequencing novel coronavirus’, PHE, 4 February 2020

51 that NHS staff would be protected from infection: Matt Hancock, statement to Parliament, 27 January 2020

52 raised the risk level to ‘moderate’: ‘Statement from the 4 UK Chief Medical Officers on novel coronavirus’, DHSC, 30 January 2020

53 declared a Level 4 National Incident, the highest level: ‘Incident Response Plan (National)’, NHS England, 21 July 2017

54 ‘public health emergency of international concern’: ‘Statement on the second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)’, WHO, 30 January 2020

55 BA stopped all flights to China: ‘Report 6 - Relative sensitivity of international surveillance’, WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College London, 21 February 2020

56 ‘address the risks and threats we face’: ‘Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy’, Boris Johnson, 26 February 2020

57 ‘the very rigorous, well-established and sophisticated policy advice structure’: Science and Technology Committee oral evidence, Q.903

58 SAGE had met for the second time on 3 February: Minutes and papers from SAGE meetings held in February 2020

59 every aspect of controlling the virus was considered: NERVTAG Meeting 23, 7 April 2020; NERVTAG Meeting 24, 9 April 2020

60 confidence that China would defeat the virus: ‘Ambassador Liu Xiaoming Meets with Stanley Johnson, Former Member of the European Parliament and Vice Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment’, 5 February 2020, available at chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng/ambassador/t1746350.htm

61 ‘we can better understand the roots of this disease’: ‘PHE reaches crucial step in fully sequencing novel coronavirus’, PHE, 4 February 2020

62 creating an extra twelve laboratories across the country: ‘PHE novel coronavirus diagnostic test rolled out across UK’, PHE, 7 February 2020

63 she obfuscated and refused to explain her reasoning: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 25 March 2020, Q.126

64 ‘You would have thought that they would be bashing down the door’: Reuters, 7 April 2020

65 he had offered his laboratories and staff to the testing effort: Email from Patrick Vallance to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020

66 ‘We were lulled into a false sense of security’: Health and Social Care Committee, oral evidence: ‘Management of the Coronavirus Outbreak’, HC 36, 21 July 2020, Q.652

67 ‘being very aware of costs and the risks of second waves’: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 25 March 2020, Q.903

68 had encouraged complacency: Prospect, 7 April 2020

69 the lack of argument reflected the nature of the people involved: Buzzfeed, 12 April 2020

70 PHE had been following up eight separate infections: Matt Hancock, statement to Parliament, 11 February 2020

71 between April and June: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 6, 11 February 2020

72 could mean checking 8,000 contacts: The Telegraph, 31 May 2020; Minutes from SAGE Meeting 8, 18 February 2020

73 ‘contact tracing would no longer be useful or practical’: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 8, 18 February 2020

74 he assumed there would be no increased testing: Email from Greg Clark to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020

75 ‘sustained transmission in the UK’: Daily Mail, 25 February 2020

76 Chinese government was deliberately providing false statistics: The Guardian, 23 April 2020

77 Ferguson’s predictions were unsurprisingly hazy: ‘SPI-M-O: Consensus Statement on 2019 Novel Coronavirus, (2019-nCoV)’, 10 February 2020

78 scientists did not know whether children would be infected: ‘SPI-M-O: Consensus view on the impact of mass school closures’, 10 February 2020

79 did not suffer: The Telegraph, 30 June 2020

80 ‘doesn’t care whether you’ve ordered pepperoni or four-cheese’: The Guardian, 6 February 2020

81 the first victim had died in northern Italy: Lawrence Freedman, 11 May 2020

82 6,143 people had tested negative: Post to PHE Twitter account, 22 February 2020, available at: twitter.com/PHE_uk

83 although the infection was much worse than realised: Select Committee on Science and Technology, 19 May 2020

84 did not highlight the same dangers of those returning from France and Spain: Tripartite letter, NHS England and NHS Improvement, the Chief Medical Officer for England and Public Health England, 24 February 2020

85 by those returning from Italy and Spain that week: Health and Social Care Committee, 5 May 2020 (Vallance at 9.40am)

86 a recipe for a simultaneous mass outbreak: ‘Comparisons of all-cause mortality between European countries and regions: January to June 2020’, Office for National Statistics, 30 July 2020

87 the NHS would require 220,000 intensive care units: Lawrence Freedman, 11 May 2020

88 not going ‘to get anywhere near being able to cope with it’: Reuters, 7 April 2020

89 ‘no transmission of Covid-19 in the community’: The Times, 15 May 2020

90 no evidence of PHE officials at the airports: Matt Hancock, statement to Parliament, 26 February 2020

91 Blair purposely excluded successive Cabinet Secretaries from critical meetings: Tom Bower, Broken Vows: Tony Blair, The Tragedy of Power, Faber & Faber (2016), p.3

92 The death toll would be 510,000 people: ‘Impact assessment of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand’, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, 16 March 2020; Addendum to SAGE Meeting 11 on Covid-19, 27 February 2020

93 the existing ICUs would be overwhelmed eight times over: Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, ‘The Neil Ferguson One’, 25 April 2020; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-publish-updated-modelling-summary

94 nevertheless accepted as the best available: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 10, 25 February 2020

95 ‘the NHS will be unable to meet all demands placed on it’: Addendum to SAGE Meeting 11, 27 February 2020; ‘Potential effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on a Covid-19 epidemic in the UK’, SAGE, 26 February 2020

96 3.6 million people would need hospital care: ‘Current understanding of COVID-19 compared with NSRA Pandemic Influenza planning assumptions’, SAGE, 26 February 2020

97 ‘It’s just part of the madness.’ The Telegraph, 23 May 2020

98 left no doubt that the country faced a severe crisis: ‘SAGE’s priorities, 26 February 2020’, prepared by Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty. It was considered at SAGE Meeting 11 on 27 February 2020.

99 ‘to avoid overwhelming the hospitals’ ICUs: SAGE Meeting 11, 27 February 2020

100 Europeans would comply with that draconian measure: London Review of Books, 7 May 2020

101 whether Covid was more complicated than previous coronaviruses: The Telegraph, 3 July 2020

102 it peaked horrifically high: ‘The effect of social distance measures on deaths and peak demand for hospital services in England’, LSHTM Modelling Team, 3 March 2020 (v2)

103 had developed an immunity: ‘Coutts in Conversation: Professor Sir John Bell’, 29 May 2020: available at: coutts.com/coutts-in-conversation/professor-sir-john-bell.html; ‘Are We Party Protected?’, GWK, available at: https://www.gwm-intl.com/news/are-partly-protected; Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Daily Situation Report of the Robert Koch Institute, 15 July 2020

104 ‘It is easy to get a perception that if you are older and you get this virus, you are a goner. Absolutely not’: Health and Social Care Committee, 5 March 2020

105 minimised the validity of those very statistics: Hansard LC Deb. vol.802, 26 February 2020 (reply to Baroness McIntosh)

106 ‘herd immunity will actually provide resistance to future visits by the virus’: Hansard LC Deb. vol.802, 26 February 2020; Science and Technology Committee oral evidence, 25 March 2020, Q.19

107 the peak would be in three to five months: also see SAGE meeting, 2 March 2020

108 the centre was testing only about eighty-five people a day: Science and Technology Committee, 25 March 2020

109 about 3,000 tests per day across the whole country one week later: Ibid.

110 isolate residents if they were suspected of being infected: The Telegraph, 14 April 2020

111 bring misery to the elderly and their relations: The Telegraph, 3 March 2020

112 the NHS would need 130,000 ICU beds: ‘The effect of social distance measures on deaths and peak demand for hospital services in England’, LSHTM Modelling Team, 3 March 2020 (v2)

113 with additional stock being ordered where necessary: ‘Coronavirus action plan: a guide to what you can expect across the UK’, DHSC policy paper, 3 March 2020

114 immediately lock down the country: ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) – update following resilience meetings’ available at: www.gov.scot/news/coronavirus-covid-19-1/

115 ‘go about their business as usual’: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 3 March 2020

116 ‘fantastic surveillance of the spread of disease’: Ibid.

117 ‘given existing evidence about the importance of hand hygiene’: ‘SPI-B return to SAGE on the use of behavioural and social interventions’, 3 March 2020

118 Dominic Cummings attended SAGE’s meeting on 5 March: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 13, 5 March 2020

119 there would be ‘no benefit’ and it would last too long: Health and Social Care Committee, 5 March 2020

120 ‘I would characterise lockdown as a panic measure.’: Science and Technology Committee oral evidence, 10 June 2020, Q.808

121 Whitty’s reliance on behavioural scientists: Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), ‘SPI-B: insights on self-isolation and household isolation’, 9 March 2020

122 publicly praised by Deirdre Hine: The Times, 5 April 2020

123 Whitty, he complained, took advice from the wrong specialists: The Times, 22 June 2020; 24 June 2020

124 that would not ‘contain’ the virus: UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, 10 November 2011, paras 4.21 & 4.22; Boris Johnson, speech delivered 9 March 2020; Science and Technology Committee, 25 March, p.87

125 ‘we need to strike a balance’: Transcript of Boris Johnson’s statements on This Morning, ITV, 10 March 2020, available at: https://fullfact.org/health/boris-johnson-coronavirus-this-morning/

126 At most, he said, 10,000 Britons were infected: Minutes from SAGE Meeting, 10 March 2020 (possibly, SAGE’s minutes mistakenly recorded 10,000 instead of 100,000)

127 Otherwise, it could be later: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 14, 10 March 2020

128 Britain registered 590 cases and ten deaths: Statistics available at: www.england.nhs.uk/2020/04/total-number-of-covid-19-deaths-in-england-by-date-of-death/; Letter from Professor Nick Phin, PHE Incident Director, National Infection Service, 11 March 2020

129 Ferguson did not realise the extent of the infection in Europe: Science & Technology Committee oral evidence, June 10 2020, Q.836

130 ‘when we should intervene’: Video posted to Boris Johnson Twitter account, available at: twitter.com/i/status/1237760976482598913; The Times, May 27 2020

131 ‘squash the sombrero’: Wired, 12 March 2020; BBC News – David Halpern, behavioural scientists and a member of SAGE, The Guardian, 12 April 2020; Minutes of SAGE Meeting 16, 16 March 2020

132 would inevitably mean the premature death of the elderly: The Telegraph, 22 March 2020

133 Vallance would deny proposing herd immunity: The Telegraph, 30 May 2020

134 Robert Peston, the journalist, was authoritatively briefed about that strategy: Lawrence Freedman, 11 May 2020

135 only when the rest of the community had immunity: The Telegraph, 30 May 2020

136 They assumed that probably over 100,000 people were infected: The Guardian, 31 May 2020

137 Doyle announced that PHE had abandoned testing in the community: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 15, 13 March 2020, Item 33

138 restricted to hospital staff: The Telegraph, 31 March 2020

139 unilaterally giving up PHE’s responsibility for testing: Health and Social Care Committee, oral evidence, 26 March 2020, Q.199; Q.202

140 ‘contact tracing was a lost cause’: Bloomberg Business Week, 24 April 2020

141 ‘so we hit 25,000 tests a day’: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 18 March 2020

142 They needed 280 in every town: Hansard, HC Deb. 23 March 2020, c63

143 Yvonne Doyle chose not to explain to MPs why PHE’s testing had stopped: Health and Social Care Select Committee, 25 March 2020

144 she did not produce the basis for PHE’s decision to scale down testing: Peacock letter to Clark, 1 May 2020; Health and Social Care Select Committee, 25 March 2020, Q.122

145 sent MPs a study undertaken by the Royal Society describing testing in other countries: ‘COVID-19 pandemic: some lessons learned so far’, Correspondence from Chair to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020

146 denied that testing and tracing was abandoned because there was no capacity: Sunday Telegraph 7 June 2020; Letter from Duncan Selbie to Greg Clark, 7 May 2020, available at: committees.parliament.uk/publications/1018/documents/8045/default/

147 no one knew where the virus was spreading and who was infected: ‘COVID-19 pandemic: some lessons learned so far’, Correspondence from Chair to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020

148 ‘so it is not the numbers of the tests that count’: Science and Technology Committee, Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, Q.817

149 ‘we will not know where those 1 million cases are.’: HC Deb, 23 March 2020, c62

150 behavioural scientists doubted that the public would obey restrictions: SAGE Meeting 15, 13 March 2020

151 ‘because people wouldn’t have perhaps responded in the way they eventually did.’: The Daily Mail, 22 May 2020

152 ‘The only way to stop this epidemic is indeed to achieve herd immunity’, The Spectator, 13 June 2020

153 children were probably not carriers: The Times, 17 May 2020

154 ‘is quite weak’: Select Committee on Science and Technology, 19 May 2020

155 ‘an unequal burden to different sections of society’: ‘SPI-B insights on combined behavioural and social interventions’, 4 March 2020

156 ‘We’re not going to trigger draconian measures now’: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 12 March 2020

157 ‘The most important task will be to protect our elderly’: Ibid.

158 ‘at some point in the next few weeks’: New Statesman, 1 April 2020; Lawrence Freedman, 11 May 2020

159 ‘huge numbers dying and catastrophic consequences for the NHS’: The Guardian, 22 March 2020

160 ‘It is very easy to say more needs to be done’: The Standard, 13 March 2020

161 ‘just pushing the deaths into the future’: The Lancet, 5 May 2020, available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31035-7; Radio New Zealand interview with Johan Giesecke, 17 May 2020, available at: www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018746794/johan-giesecke-why-lockdowns-are-the-wrong-approach

162 ‘It is always easier to say that we could have done something slightly different’: Science and Technology Committee, 19 May 2020, Q.847

163 ‘That is a scientific concept, not a goal or a strategy’: Sunday Telegraph, 15 March 2020

164 questioned the scientific credibility of ‘behavioural fatigue’: Behavioural Scientist, 16 March 2020

165 ‘we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1–1.2 million in the US’: ‘Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand’, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team; Financial Times Alphaville, 17 March 2020

166 he estimated the number of deaths to be 20,000: Science and Technology Committee, 25 March 2020 Q.24

167 thereafter pressure on hospitals would fall: The Telegraph, 17 March 2020; Neil Ferguson Twitter account, 26 March 2020, available at twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928

168 ‘I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model’: The Daily Wire, 26 March 2020; Financial Times Alphaville, 26 March 2020; The New England Journal of Medicine 2020; 383:303-305 DOI:10.1056/NEJMp2016822

169 Gupta’s study disputed the reliance on the tests for antibodies: UnHerd, May 21 2020

170 the projected 510,000 deaths was wrong: Gupta worked on a ‘population-based model’. Ferguson’s was an ‘individual-based model’.

171 I wrote the code … 13+ years ago to model flu pandemics: Neil Ferguson Twitter account, 22 March 2020

172 the restrictions applied on 16 March were aimed towards the lockdown: Science and Technology Committee, oral evidence, 24 April 2020, Q.278

173 But they did not go further: Health and Social Care Committee, oral evidence, 21 July 2020, Q.608; Q.638

174 right of freeborn people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub: Johnson, press conference 20 March 2020

175 should avoid pubs, clubs and theatres: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 16 March 2020

176 he had scrambled an appeal to industry for help: Reuters, 7 April 2020

177 Britain was just two weeks behind Italy: SAGE meeting 18 March

178 ‘this government will do whatever it takes’: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 17 March 2020

179 eventually benefit nearly 10 million employees: ‘Coronavirus response: social distancing measures and economic support across the UK’, Institute for Government, 20 May 2020

180 But there never was a shortage of ICUs: Science and Technology Committee Oral evidence: UK science, research and technology capability and influence in global disease outbreaks, HC 136, 25 March 2020, Q.15

181 begin to develop a vaccine: Weekly Report 1, COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium, 23 March 2020

182 PHE had withdrawn items of critical advice: ‘Guidance for social or community care and residential settings on COVID-19’, PHE, 25 February 2020 (withdrawn 13 March 2020)

183 About 418,000 people in England were living in 11,109 care homes: ‘Later Life in the United Kingdom 2019’, Age UK, last updated May 2019; ‘Care Homes for Older People UK Market Report’, LaingBuisson, 5 December 2019

184 None were obliged to obey any government regulations: ‘Care homes market study: final report’, Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA), 30 November 2017; Care Homes Analysis (12 May 2020), Working Care Homes Group, published 29 April 2020

185 ‘as the top priority’: Science and Technology Committee, Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, Q.830; Q.838

186 ‘when the NHS will be under the most pressure’: New Scientist, 25 August 2020

187 But his promise had not been implemented by Whitehall: Minutes from SAGE Meeting 14, 10 March

188 ideally within three hours: ‘COVID-19 Hospital Discharge Service Requirements’, DHSC, 19 March 2020

189 empty 15,000 acute beds by 27 March, and later another 10,000: ‘Spotlight on Recent NHS Discharges into Care Homes’, NHS Providers, 19 May 2020

190 would not stop London’s ICUs being overwhelmed: SAGE Meeting, 20 March 2020

191 ‘there will be no discharges from hospitals into care homes.’: Health Service Journal, 21 March 2020

192 the care homes’ refusal was widespread: The Guardian, 29 March 2020

193 ‘He should’ve been watching what went on in care homes in Spain and Italy’: Martin Green, interview with author

194 The law removed the legal protection for patients to be safely discharged: ‘COVID-19 Hospital Discharge Service Requirements’, DHSC, 19 March 2020

195 25,000 infected patients were dumped into the homes: Financial Times, 17 July 2020

196 if a patient could not be tested, they would be isolated in the care home: NHS Providers blog, 23 May 2020, available at nhsproviders.org/news-blogs/news/stop-making-the-nhs-a-scapegoat-for-deaths-in-social-care; ‘Spotlight on Recent NHS Discharges into Care Homes’, NHS Providers, 19 May 2020

197 Cummings asked why the lockdown had not started: The Telegraph, 29 April 2020

198 The decision to enter lockdown would have been the same: John Newton blog

199 ‘We vastly underestimated the general public’: Science and Technology Committee, Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, Q.859; Q.847

200 Vallance replied ‘No.’: Select Committee, 25 March Q.79 & Q.81; ‘Scientific evidence supporting the government response to coronavirus (COVID-19)’, SAGE, 26 June 2020; ‘COVID-19 pandemic: some lessons learned so far’, Correspondence from Chair to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020

201 he agreed to do what he called ‘extraordinary’: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 18 March 2020

202 the British acting high commissioner in Delhi was cursed by desperate British tourists: ‘Flying Home: The FCO’s consular response to the COVID-19 pandemic’, Foreign Affairs Committee Report, 28 July 2020

203 drowned out by NHS staff complaints about shortages of PPE: ‘Spotlight on the Supply of Personal Protective Equipment’, NHS Providers, 22 April 2020

204 ‘an entirely separate PPE oversight and supply chain’: Harries, press conference 20 March at 32.43

205 Wormald preferred later to shy away from fully answering questions: Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak, HC 405, 22 June 2020

206 ‘didn’t know how much fabric was required to make one garment’: Financial Times, 20 April 2020

207 he could not explain why commercial procurement and distribution was failing: Health and Social Care Committee, Oral evidence: Coronavirus - NHS Preparedness, HC 36, 17 March 2020; Health and Social Care Committee oral evidence: Delivering Core NHS and Care Services during the pandemic and beyond, HC 320, 30 June 2020

208 it is still true that many lives will sadly be lost: Boris Johnson, speech delivered 23 March 2020

209 He would be reprimanded by Chris Whitty: Health and Social Care Committee, oral evidence, 21 July 2020, Q.614

210 ‘the costs of lockdown may be considerably worse than the disease itself’: Science and Technology Committee, Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136; Q.808

211 and there was insufficient testing: The Times, 20 April, 2020

212 Sunetra Gupta criticised the lockdown as a mistake: ‘COVID-19 Death Data in England – Update 22nd April’, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, 22 April 2020;

213 https://www.cebm.net/oxford-covid-19-evidence-service/ Professor Carl Heneghan

214 Possibly the legacy was a T-cell immunity from Covid-19: ‘Coutts in Conversation: Professor Sir John Bell’, 29 May 2020; ‘Presence of SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in COVID-19 patients and healthy donors’, Julian Braun et al, available at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.17.20061440; ‘How do we know who is immune to COVID-19?’, available at: www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/how-do-we-know-who-immune-covid-19; ‘Pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2: the knowns and unknowns’, Nature Reviews Immunology volume 20, pages 457–458, 7 July 2020, updated 17 August 2020; ‘8 Out of 10 People Not Infected With COVID-19 Protected by Episodes of Colds in the Past: German Study’, Science Times, 30 June 2020

215 the mathematician would predict that Britain’s death toll would be ‘substantially lower’ than 20,000: The Times, 26 March 2020; Commons Science & Technology Committee

216 Statistically, he was not in danger: ‘Reasonable Worst-Case Planning Scenario’, SAGE, 29 March 2020

Chapter 28: Covid II

1 ‘I was aware there were contingency plans in place’: The Sun, 2 May 2020

2 ‘He absolutely needed to be there,’ she insisted: Daily Mail, 23 April 2020

3 the number of deaths had peaked and was beginning to decline: SAGE meeting 25, 14 April 2020

4 the Oxford research group was confident about producing a vaccine: ‘Hancock launches first of three mega-labs for Covid-19 testing’, Research Professional News, 10 April 2020

5 The Telegraph, 17 April 2020

6 the government had given £93 million to build a vaccine manufacturing centre: The Guardian, 17 May 2020

7 already classed as the worst in Europe: The Telegraph, 28 April 2020

8 Newton’s attitude was symbolic of the NHS’s bureaucracy: ‘COVID-19 pandemic: some lessons learned so far’, Correspondence from Chair to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020; Science and Technology Committee Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, 8 April 2020

9 ‘public health experts had been sidelined’: The Guardian, 1 April 2020; Horton 25 March to Science and Technology Committee.

10 they had not told ministers ‘until mid-March’: Daily Mail, 9 April 2020

11 unknowingly pass the virus to three other individuals: Select Committee on Science and Technology: The science of Covid-19, 19 May 2020

12 the experts’ own mistakes were minimised: The Guardian, 29 April 2020

13 ‘it is much better to have over-capacity than under-capacity’: The Telegraph, 2 May 2020

14 thirteen times higher in Britain than in Germany: The Guardian, 28 June 2020

15 Hancock had been warned in the Commons about temporary staff spreading the virus: Hansard LC Deb. vol.627, 3 March 2020, question from Liz Kendall

16 lived in overcrowded and intergenerational housing: Care Homes Analysis (12 May 2020), Working Care Homes Group, published 29 April 2020

17 she did not know for certain: DHSC, oral evidence, 26 March 2020 Q.235

18 did not mention restricting staff movements: ‘New requirement to test patients being discharged from hospital to a care home’, Professor Keith Willett and Matthew Winn, NHS England and NSH Improvement, 16 April 2020

19 despite the government’s promise on 13 March to provide free PPE: ‘£2.9 billion funding to strengthen care for the vulnerable’, DHSC and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 19 March 2020

20 A special alert was issued on 15 May: ‘Spotlight on Recent NHS Discharges into Care Homes’, NHS Providers, 19 May 2020

21 the guidance was not properly updated until 9 July: ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): care home support package’, DHSC, 9 July 2020

22 By then about 20,000 people had died in care homes: ‘Deaths involving COVID-19 in the care sector, England and Wales: deaths occurring up to 12 June 2020 and registered up to 20 June 2020 (provisional)’, Office of National Statistics, 3 July 2020

23 had been hired to cover for staff: The Guardian, 3 July 2020

24 had not been following the procedures correctly: The Telegraph, 6 July 2020

25 no patients would be infected by Covid: ‘Our plan to rebuild: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy’, 11 May 2020; ‘COVID-19 and the impact on social care’, Office for National Statistics, 9 July 2020; ‘Deaths involving COVID-19 in the care sector, England and Wales: deaths occurring up to 12 June 2020 and registered up to 20 June 2020 (provisional)’, Office of National Statistics, 3 July 2020

26 Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors: ‘COVID-19 Insight: Issue 3’, Care Quality Commission, July 2020

27 done no more than ‘fifty inspections during lockdown’: ‘No evidence for Johnson claim that care homes failed to follow Covid procedures’, Channel 4 FactCheck, 7 July 2020, available at: www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-no-evidence-for-johnson-claim-that-care-homes-failed-to-follow-covid-procedures

28 ‘they are carrying out close personal care without any protection’: Daily Mail, 16 April 2020, UNISON press release, 4 May 2020, available at: www.unison.org.uk/news/press-release/2020/05/elderly-vulnerable-people-still-risk-poor-advice-care-homes-says-unison/

29 acknowledged as inadequate: ‘COVID-19: how to work safely in care homes’, PHE, 17 April 2020

30 ‘at increased risk to those individuals and care-home staff’: ‘Spotlight on Recent NHS Discharges into Care Homes’, NHS Providers, 19 May 2020

31 ‘It is still not clear who is responsible for testing care-home residents and staff.’: Ibid.

32 the department was still sending a fifteen-page letter: Correspondence from Helen Whately, Minister of State for Care, 14 May 2020

33 he made no excuses: Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak, HC 405, 22 June 2020, Q.25; Q.43; Q.90; ‘COVID-19: our action plan for adult social care’, DHSC, 16 April 2020

34 It would finally be sent to care-home managers in mid-May: The Telegraph, 19 May 2020; Correspondence from Helen Whately, Minister of State for Care, 14 May 2020

35 only £194 million had been transferred by the local authorities: ‘ADASS Budget Survey 2020 Part #2 Impact of Covid-19 on budgets’, Directors of Adult Social Services, 18 June

36 ‘red tape and bureaucratic spaghetti’: ‘Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak’, Public Accounts Committee, 22 June 2020, evidence submitted by Care England

37 ‘Behind the scenes he has done absolutely nothing’: Martin Green, interview with author

38 He claimed only a quarter of deaths were in the homes: The Telegraph, 12 May 2020

39 the public’s trust in the prime minister and his government fell slightly further: ‘Response to Sunday Times Insight article’, DHSC Media Centre, 19 April 2020

40 only 1 per cent of the total figure: Office for National Statistics, ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) roundup’, updated 26 August 2020. Note: up to 7 August 2020 it was 560 deaths out of 51,879 in England and Wales.

41 Another 10,610 ‘excess’ deaths: The Times, 15 May 2020

42 Explaining all the reasons for the excess deaths was difficult: ‘The road to renewal: five priorities for health and care’, The King’s Fund, 16 July 2020

43 Covid-related deaths included people who had died with Covid: The Spectator, 30 May 2020

44 Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were about three times more likely to die: Daily Mail, 1 May 2020

45 including living conditions, obesity and diabetes: The Critic, 27 April 2020

46 did not have an underlying health issue: Daily Mail, 20 May 2020

47 felt compelled to continue working: Financial Times, 7 May 2020

48 immigrants’ poverty and low-paid employment: The Guardian, 2 June 2020

49 Chris Whitty said that no one knew the reason: ‘COVID-19 pandemic: some lessons learned so far’, Correspondence from Chair to Boris Johnson, 18 May 2020

50 Descriptions of hospitals on the brink and staff risking death: Financial Times, 29 April 2020

51 17 million pieces of equipment to 258 trusts on one day: ‘Our plan to rebuild: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy’, 11 May 2020

52 They were supported by Nicola Sturgeon: The Times, 25 April 2020

53 the government’s popularity had fallen from 72 per cent in February to 58 per cent: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-reports/2020/03/17/perception-government-handling-covid-19

54 a new tracing app uniquely relying on self-reporting: Letter from Niall Dickson, Chief Executive NHS Confederation, 20 May 2020; Financial Times, 21 May 2020; New Scientist, 25 August 2020

55 ‘a world-beating operational system’ by 1 June near impossible: The Telegraph, 4 May 2020

56 most sufferers had no antibodies: The Times, 29 May 2020

57 ‘we are really still only beginning to understand how we are going to combat it’: Chris Whitty, speech delivered at Gresham College, 30 April 2020

58 there were lots of other things that needed to be done: The Guardian, 31 May 2020

59 20 per cent of those infected would suffer ‘severe ill-effects’: Science and Technology Committee, HC 136, 25 March 2020

60 ‘urging the importance of testing and isolation’: Ibid.

61 the British government was coping as well as most in Europe: ‘Number of deaths in care homes notified to the Care Quality Commission, England’, Office for National Statistics, updated 25 August 2020

62 other hospitals suffered extreme shortages: The Times 23 April 2020

63 they are being consumed too quickly as people are using them inappropriately: Professor Calum Semple, Professor of Child Health and Outbreak Medicine at the University of Liverpool, and a member of NERVTAG

64 ‘dishonest and cowardly’ for ‘hiding behind the science’: The Times 25 April 2020

65 quoting ‘the science’ was a tactic of ‘obsessive secrecy’: The Times 9 May 2020

66 could cost 100,000 lives by the end of the year: The Times 27 April 2020

67 ‘we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half’: Commons Science and Technology Committee, Oral evidence: UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks, HC 136, Q.845

68 blamed the lockdown for causing more deaths than it saved: The Telegraph, 23 March 2020

69 could have caused an earlier overwhelming of GPs and A&E practitioners: Strife Blog, Interview with Professor Calum Semple, 2 April 2020, available at http://www.strifeblog.org/2020/04/02/uk-government-policy-in-facing-the-coronavirus-threat-an-interview-with-professor-calum-semple/

70 Sloppily, medics put Covid as a cause of death: Planet Normal podcast, The Telegraph, 11 June 2020

71 contradicted by David Spiegelhalter, the respected British statistician: Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and formerly president of the Royal Statistical Society.

72 somewhere between 5 and 15 per cent of all deaths: Financial Times Alphaville, 22 May 2020

73 Sweden’s care homes were suffering an exceptionally high death rate: The Telegraph, 28 April 2020

74 The actual number was 2,954 deaths: The Telegraph, 16 May 2020

75 Others still endorsed Imperial’s model as reliable: Mike Cates, ‘Reflections of a Novice COVID-19 Researcher’, 19 May 2020, available at: https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/news/reflections-of-a-novice-covid-19-researcher/

76 the latest YouGov poll putting the Tories at 50 per cent and Labour at 30 per cent: The Times, 7 May 2020

77 the NHS had not collapsed but had performed brilliantly: The Times, 8 May 2020

78 ‘from faceless civil servants to our new overlords’: The Times, 16 May 2020

79 unfair to the 7 per cent of children without access to the Internet: The Times, 7 May 2020

80 an hysterical attack on the government’s and SAGE’s management of the crisis: The Telegraph, 30 May 2020; BMJ 2020;369:m1932

81 Sending children to school would ‘risk a second spike’: The Times 18 May 2020

82 That is 10,000 times the risk of younger people: The Times, 10 May 2020

83 Edmunds had not publicly protested: Sky TV, 20 May 2020

84 He attacked Boris and the ‘arrogant’ British scientific community: Science, 11 May 2020, doi:10.1126/science.abc7438

85 remain in lockdown until the virus disappeared: Financial Times, 4 June 2020

86 ‘it is taking another gamble’: Financial Times, 4 June 2020

87 three-step narrative to reopen Britain: ‘Our plan to rebuild: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy’, 11 May 2020

88 the nation was left confused: The Telegraph, 11 May 2020

89 ‘it was a disappointing thirteen minutes’: The Telegraph, 12 May 2020

90 ‘He hesitated to present his scheme as a set plan’: The Times, 11 May 2020

91 ‘But it is a wicked thing that they are doing’: The Times, 17 May 2020

92 One week earlier, it had been 48 per cent: Daily Mail, 17 May 2020 Boris was ‘fading’: The Guardian, 12 May 2020

93 ‘It is the worst of both’: The Telegraph, 12 May 2020, extract from Economic Intelligence Newsletter

94 ‘Germany reacted more boldly and more courageously, and Britain was slow’: In conversation with Alan Rusbridger in Oxford, 20 May 2020

95 ‘We do not believe that there is sufficient clarity’: 15 May 2020, supported by Keith Neal, professor emeritus of epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham.

96 ‘No, Mr Speaker, and it was not true that the advice said that’: Hansard LC Deb. vol.676, 13 May 2020

97 The number of discharges were down by 40 per cent: Liaison Committee, oral evidence from Boris Johnson, HC 322, 27 May 2020

98 ‘the health of a small child’: The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, Section 6

99 Matthews later admitted that he had fabricated the second sighting ‘for comedy’: Mail on Sunday, 31 May 2020

100 ‘a shambles with Trumpian levels of deceit’: The Guardian, 25 May 2020

101 ‘prop up the collapsing reputations of ministers’: The Guardian, 27 May 2020

102 ‘The government would be better without him’: The Guardian, 26 May 2020

103 ‘If Boris Johnson cannot function without Cummings he is not qualified to be prime minister’: The Spectator, 28 May 2020

104 ‘tell lots of lies, move on’: The Guardian, 30 May 2020

Epilogue

1 ‘Our great national hibernation is coming to an end’: 23 June 2020

2 opposed a general return to work: The Times 17 July 2020; Commons Science a Technology Committee

3 belated denial that his organisation was responsible for a ‘national testing strategy’: The Times, 17 August 2020