Boris Johnson’s ‘mini-honeymoons’. The corridor of uncertainty
Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson got married at the beginning of June and provoked some religious controversy. It was reported however that the honeymoon would wait.
Not quite, but surely there aren’t many who take what Johnson says at face value?
It was reported that the ‘happy couple’ had in fact taken a two-day mini honeymoon, but it was not known where.
In fact the ever reliable Daily M**l reported the location which was the PM’s country retreat Chequers in Buckinghamshire.
Symonds and Johnson spent a Sunday and Monday there.
At the end of June social media rumours suggested Johnson and Ms Symonds were having another mini-honeymoon, this time in Portugal. The country is on the amber travel list so Johnson would have needed to quarantine on return. I doubt too many would complain about a period of isolation for the PM.
However he was in fact at Chequers again over the weekend and pictured to be so. It probably wasn’t another mini-honeymoon on this occasion. No doubt Johnson has in mind that Mrs Thatcher was a great fan of the place.
How or why the Portugal rumour started is far from clear but when it comes to Johnson the worlds of fact and fiction often collide.
Chequers is a grace and favour residence for PMs- in other words a sinecure of Office. In the pre-democratic era before the 1832 Reform Bill William Cobbett referred to such practices as ‘Old Corruption’.
Johnson stayed there after he contracted COVID and before that for a period after he was sacked as Foreign Secretary by Theresa May and apparently had nowhere to stay.
Chequers is paid for primarily by the taxpayer through an official grant. It’s good to know that Johnson managed to get even his mini-honeymoon publicly funded
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