What precisely was Boris doing in mid-February 2020? At half-term he went to Chevening (Chequers was out of action) for twelve days for a working break. Brexit had happened on 31 January. Still tired after his winter election triumph, he needed to finalise his divorce to hotshot lawyer Marina Wheeler, his wife who was ill with cancer and in the process of, with considerable justification, taking the Prime Minister to the cleaners. He needed to reconcile his family to his impending engagement to Carrie, pregnant with their child. And in classic Boris-style he found himself short of funds, what with the divorce and pressures to renovate the Downing Street flat and all that.
The allegation now swirling again is that in that period when the pandemic was building the PM was also working on his delayed biography of Shakespeare, to help pay for his divorce. Several journalists checked that claim out last year but could not stand it up. There were denials and some unsatisfactory stonewalling.
The book was first delayed in 2016, when he was appointed Foreign Secretary and the suggestion was that the ÂŁ500,000 advance, or the part of it paid out, might have to be repaid. After his resignation from May’s team in July 2018, the book was back on. In April 2019, the publishers confirmed it would appear in April 2020, although it was unfinished. Then Theresa May fell in 2019 and Boris was elevated. Book delayed, again. Last Spring, 2020, the book was still publicly listed for sale, but this was said to be a publisher mistake. Claims Boris had done any work on the book since becoming Prime Minister were dismissed privately by his people as rubbish. Were they?
The first public airing of the allegation came in The Sunday Times this weekend, although it was buried in the middle of a story about Dominic Cummings giving evidence to MPs on Wednesday.
It reported: “Officials in the Cabinet Office are concerned that Dominic Cummings will accuse Boris Johnson of missing key Cobra meetings because he was working on a biography of Shakespeare, the money from which he needed to fund his divorce.”
We’ll have to see what Cummings says, although it is ironic that many of those who were most anti-Dom in the wake of Brexit today see him as a great truth-telling hero, now he is subjecting the Johnson administration to intense scrutiny.
The PM’s allies are pushing back. Yes, in January and February their man missed five COBRA meetings, the emergency forum for decision-making about a potential or live crisis. Several cabinet ministers point out that the meetings are often chaired by figures other than the PM. “It happened under Theresa,” says one. What, asked another, is wrong with him taking a break for twelve days? Fair enough, up to a point. It is hard to imagine Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Theresa May, being away, delegating key meetings, and engaged in much other business as a storm gathered. They would all, in their own way, have surely been all over it. Imagine Thatcher the chemist quizzing officials and scientists in January, never mind mid-February.
There are indications that a defence is being readied by his allies if the book allegation is true. No-one – other than Boris or someone with access to any email traffic between him and his publisher or agent in that crucial period – knows for sure what he was up to. One minister says it would be fine if he was scribbling because he was writing in his own time to relax, as though writing books for money during a premiership, during a growing health emergency, rather than after it is over, is perfectly fine.
Why exactly, you might be wondering, would a Prime Minister head off to the country to write chapters about Shakespeare, if indeed that is part of what he did in that pivotal month?
He certainly had the motive, needing the money for the reasons explained earlier. Outgoings are extensive and he took that large pay cut to be Prime Minister. Boris is a PM without a pot to piss in. The suggestion is that showing some progress on the book would be enough to keep the deal alive, to show willing, as it were. If the allegation is untrue, it can be denied properly. The public inquiry when it meets will presumably also want to study all emails from the period so everyone involved had better think carefully.
Another oddity. Mikey Smith of the Mirror pointed out on Twitter that on February 5 2020, Boris took part in a “People’s PMQs” answering questions from the public. At the end of this online forerunner of the Zoom calls with which we have all become some familiar since the disastrous first wave of Covid-19, Johnson closed on an extended, detailed riff about Shakespeare. For almost two minutes he burbled merrily about the meeting between the Bard and Queen Elizabeth I that is said to have taken place. With a smile he concluded: “Nobody asked me that question tonight on People’s PMQs but I’m giving you that information absolutely free.”
It remains entirely possible, is likely even, that this saga and anything else Cummings says will make zero difference post-vaccine. Boris Johnson’s fans in the electorate have decided they care not a jot for such stories relying on hindsight fuelled by the wicked media. Many other voters are tired of the pandemic and have concluded that what happened more than a year ago is ancient history. Those in authority were trying their best. Weren’t they? Were they?
