One should always be careful
about believing the detail of what people plugging a book – or a podcast –
about politics have to say. They do, after all, have a vested interest in
selling something, and brash headlines are not exactly unhelpful. Guto Harri,
Boris Johnson’s former Communications Chief has been at it today, claiming that
Johnson squared
up to the soon-to-be-king and gave him a dressing down over his description
of the Rwanda policy as 'appalling' leaving Charles ‘squirming’; that Johnson
thought that Sue
Gray was a ‘psycho’ (takes one to know one, maybe?); and that Johnson was
all set to sack
Rishi Sunak as Chancellor when Sunak beat him to it by resigning, the
dastardly Chancellor that he was.
There is a question over the
discretion of both men in talking about what did or did not happen in what was
supposed to be a private conversation with Charles but, notwithstanding the
golden rule about being careful about taking the word of someone who has
something to sell, it is entirely credible that Johnson would have said all
these things to Harri. What is a lot less credible, though, is that Harri, as
someone who knew Johnson better than most, and would have been extremely
familiar with his tendency to dissimulate, exaggerate, and say different things
to different people, could apparently have so readily believed that what
Johnson was saying to him might bear some relationship to truth.
Johnson has denied the bit
about Charles, of course, with a ‘source close to him’ claiming that he “does
not recognise this account and it is inaccurate”. Well, he would, wouldn’t
he, to coin a phrase. Johnson’s great hero, Churchill, once said that he knew
that history was going to be kind to him because he intended to write that
history. In Johnson’s case, we have two versions of history in one day, and in
all probability neither of them actually reflects what happened. Still, it
might all help to sell a podcast or two.
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