New claims about Boris Johnson are “not true” and constitute a “comedic chapter” in an ongoing briefing war in Westminster, a cabinet minister told Sky News.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace strongly refuted newspaper claims that the Prime Minister told colleagues in October that he would rather see “bodies piled up in the thousands” rather than have a third COVID lockdown.
The Daily Mail reported on Monday that Mr Johnson said in a meeting at Number 10 at the time: “No more lockdowns – bodies piled in by the thousands!”
But Mr Wallace told Sky News the claim was “not true”.
“This has been categorically denied by virtually everyone,” he added.
“We are now getting into the kind of comedic chapter of these gossip stories – anonymous sources by anonymous advisers talking about unnamed events.
“None of this is serious.”
Mr Wallace said Mr Johnson and his cabinet ministers had been “totally focused” on their response to the COVID crisis.
“All the ‘who said, what said, what said’, I’ll leave that to the Oscar gossip columns that are now rolling out today after last night, I’ll leave that to the Hello magazines of the. world, ”he mentioned.
“But the government is focused on providing the citizen with a COVID response.”
The allegation over Mr Johnson’s comments at the No.10 meeting in October comes amid a bitter feud between No.10 and former chief adviser to the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings.
Last week, “sources” at No. 10 were quoted in newspapers as blaming Mr Cummings for the recent leaks about the Prime Minister’s private conversations.
But Mr Cummings fought back and denied the allegations.
He also made a series of explosive allegations in a 1,000-word blog post about Mr Johnson, in which he also questioned the Prime Minister’s “competence and integrity”.
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-04-26 06:35:00
