Boris Johnson devised secret plot to invade Holland and seize Covid vaccines
The former PM has staunchly defended his conduct in No10 during the pandemic
BORIS Johnson devised a secret plot to invade Holland and seize Covid vaccine supplies.
In his new memoir Unleashed, the ex-PM details how after months of “futile” negotiations with EU chiefs for the release of five million vaccines, he drew up contingency plans for British special forces to take matters into their own hands.
In 2021 supplies of the British-pioneered jab were “kidnapped” by Brussels bureaucrats in a warehouse in Leiden while they battled ministers over red tape.
Despite mapping out plans to covertly raid Dutch canals and claim the vaccines, Mr Johnson ultimately concluded the idea was “nuts”.
In Unleashed, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail before its full release on October 10, the ex-PM also delves into his life-threatening battle with Covid and the Partygate scandal that ultimately ended his premiership.
Mr Johnson recounts that when his arch-nemesis and former Cabinet colleague Michael Gove found out he could die from the disease, “his spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought”.
The ex-PM also gives heart-breaking details about how he avoided falling asleep in the Intensive Care Unit at St Thomas’s hospital out of fear he’d never wake up.
Turning to partygate, Mr Johnson staunchly defended his conduct in No10 during the pandemic.
While admitting he made “several mistakes” he said he should’ve doubled down and defended himself and Downing Street staff rather than apologising.
Mr Johnson takes a swing at then-civil servant partygate investigator Sue Gray, who went on to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The ex-PM said the former mandarin spearheaded “a ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt” against him.
Describing the No10 pandemic “cake” meeting that prompted a Met Police probe, Mr Johnson said: “I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake.
“If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.”
And turning to the new PM, Mr Johnson accused Sir Keir Starmer of looking like “a bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum”.
'I NEARLY CARKED IT'
By Noa Hoffman
BORIS Johnson has described how he almost “carked it” with Covid during the pandemic.
The ex-PM said he survived only thanks to two Intensive Care Unit nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital in central London.
In his memoir, Unleashed, he writes: “If it hadn’t been for Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it.”
He admits ignoring doctors’ advice about going to hospital despite being so ill he could barely walk.
He only did when told it could “go either way”.