Boris Johnson: ‘My friends, I was too fat when I caught COVID-19’
The British Prime Minister frankly admits there was too much of him to love when he was hit by COVID-19, but after slimming down claims he has found “the hero inside”.
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Boris Johnson has revealed he has lost almost 12kg, saying he was “too fat” when he caught coronavirus, as the UK infection rate doubled in a week.
The British Prime Minister took a detour during a Conservative Party conference speech where he outlined plans for a wind-powered clean energy revolution and offered young homeowners a lifeline with 5 per cent deposit loans.
Mr Johnson used his speech to quote a song from 1990s dance band M People, when discussing his own personal weight loss journey.
“My friends, I was too fat and I’ve since lost 26 pounds (11.7kg),” he said.
“You can imagine that in bags of sugar and I’m going to continue that diet because you’ve got to search for the hero inside yourself in the hope that the individual is slimmer.”
M People released the song Search For The Hero in 1995 on the album Bizarre Fruit, giving an insight into the Prime Minister’s music collection.
It came as new figures that showed that coronavirus infections, with 14,542 positive tests on Tuesday, had doubled within a week in the UK.
And the death toll hit 76 - the highest daily total in three months.
However, despite Mr Johnson’s positive mood, Professor Neil Ferguson, whose advice prompted the first UK lockdown, said the country should close pubs and restaurants to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Mr Johson, 56, also channelled fictional character Austin Powers, saying he had not lost his “mojo” as he rejected claims he had not recovered from COVID-19.
The annual conference is usually a weekend long talk and drinking festival, but has been curtailed by coronavirus restrictions to Zoom meetings.
Mr Johnson also took aim at his own previous criticism of wind farms as he announced he wanted renewable energy to power every home in the UK by 2030.
He had torched them in a radio interview in 2013 when he was London mayor, advocating for shale gas instead.
However, he used the same line in their favour on Tuesday.
“I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power, 20 years ago, and say that it wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding,” he said.
Mr Johnson wants to build thousands of wind turbines in the seas off the windy British coast - where they would not destroy the view in many local picturesque villages.
He argued it would support 60,000 jobs and be part of a new renewable energy future.
“As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind,” he said.
The offer of low deposit loans would be a major kickstart to the UK’s spluttering housing sector, with many unable to save the 20 per cent that banks require.
Mr Johnson has been under considerable pressure, with backbenchers in his party angry.
Some were frustrated that he threatened to break international law by ignoring parts of the Brexit bill, and others were furious about his lack of consultation on coronavirus restrictions.
However, a rebellion on the rule that prevents more than six people gathering did not succeed on Wednesday morning Australian time.
stephen.drill@news.co.uk
BORIS JOHNSON’S MONEY WOES AFTER SALARY CUT
Boris Johnson has another thing in common with his hero Winston Churchill, he’s struggling to make ends meet.
The British Prime Minister’s pay has been cut by two thirds since he took on the top job, and under strict rules he’s forced to pay when he entertains people at his government residences, including No. 10 and Chequers, his country retreat.
He’s been complaining about his costs, and some friends are not accepting invitations because they say he can’t afford it on his 150,000 GBP ($267,000 AUD) salary.
By world standards it is modest – Scott Morrison is paid $550,000 per year, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel earns $568,000, and French president Emmanuel Macron earns $290,000.
But the average UK salary is 29,600 GBP ($53,000).
And a new book released at the weekend has compounded his problems, amid claims that his father Stanley broke his mother’s nose, and that his children to ex-wife Marina Wheeler snubbed a party to celebrate him becoming Prime Minister.
He’s also been battling claims that he has been suffering long-term problems following his coronavirus bout in April, while all eyes are on his Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who continues to impress.
“It’s not tittle-tattle. It’s drivel. It’s not tittle-tattle, it’s balderdash. I am fitter than several butcher’s dogs,” he told the BBC at the weekend.
“The issue is that when I alas got this wretched thing, I was too fat. And if I may say so, this is a teachable moment for our great country.”
Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative Party leader, said it was “bonkers” that the Prime Minister had to pay restaurant prices for the meals of his guests when they stayed at his country estate.
“The ludicrous situation at Chequers, you have to have a home there and you get charged for the fact that you have servants there,” he told News Corp Australia.
“What are you going to do, dismiss the servants when people come around. It’s completely, utterly bonkers, but that’s the UK.”
He said the PM was paid too little, and always had been.
“There’s people in their 20s in the financial district earning four, five, 10 times that with little responsibility,” he said.
“We’ve always been parsimonious, people have to give up everything to become PM.”
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As coronavirus cripples Britain’s economy, Mr Johnson is not the only one with a retreating bank balance.
But his expenses, including a recent divorce to his wife of 27 years Marina Wheeler – a barrister who was expected to drive a hard bargain – are higher than most.
He has a baby son Wilfred, who is four months old, and it’s understood that his fiance Carrie Symonds is paying some of her own expenses.
He’s worried he’s too skint to afford a nanny on his pay, struggling to keep up with the cost of living in London – one of the world’s most expensive cities.
The twice divorced Mr Johnson also has five other children, whom he supports, and was seen rushing out of parliament to have lunch with one of his daughter’s recently.
After his divorce in February, his father acknowledged the existence of a love child that he had with art critic Helen Macintyre in 2009.
In an interview in June while the UK was in lockdown, Stanley Johnson said that he was pleased to have met Stephanie during FaceTime calls.
Mr Johnson gave up his column with the UK Daily Telegraph, which netted him $275,000 GBP ($491,000 AUD) per year for his weekly thoughts, when he became Prime Minister last year.
He now lives with Ms Symonds in a flat above No. 11 Downing Street, however its taxed as a benefit in kind on the rent he would normally be asked to pay.
And with the UK’s top tax rate of 40 per cent shrinking his take home earnings.
“Boris, like other prime ministers, is very, very badly served. He doesn’t have a housekeeper – he has a single cleaner and they’re worried about being able to afford a nanny,” a friend told The Times of London.
“He’s stuck in the flat and Downing Street is not a nice place to live. It’s not like the Élysée or the White House where you can get away from it all because they’re so big. Even if he or Carrie want to go into the rose garden they have to go through the office.”
In his previous life, Mr Johnson wrote a book on Mr Churchill, Britain’s famous wartime leader titled: The Churchill Factor: How one man made history.
And now he’s proving that history repeats itself.
Mr Churchill was an unrivalled public speaker, leader of men, and belligerent Prime Minister who beat Hitler.
However, he wasn’t the best at remembering to pay his shirtmaker, or the watchmaker and the wine merchant also had to chase him up.
If Afterpay existed when he was alive, Mr Churchill would have been one of its biggest customers.
He bought champagne by the case, smoked expensive cigars, and holidayed in the Bahamas.
It has been a common problem for the aristocracy in England, they inherit massive wealth through property, but not the cash to keep things up.
Oscar Wilde lampooned the English establishment in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1894 – and both Mr Johnson and Mr Churchill would identify with some of the characters.
Mr Johnson does not mind the good things in life either.
His trip to Mustique, an exclusive island in the Caribbean, after Christmas in 2019 cost 15,000 GBP for a week ($26,000 AUD).
But we’re still not sure who footed the bill after the businessman listed in parliamentary documents, David Ross, claimed that he “facilitated” the trip.
There have been concerns for Mr Johnson for months now – he’s battling the long term effects of COVID-19 and trying to lose weight at the same time, adding extra strain to the PM taking Britain through its biggest crisis since World War Two.
Mr Johnson has been seen running daily in the park and has dropped at least seven kilograms, with some of his suits now swimming on him.
He was even disciplined on his birthday in June at Downing Street.
“There was a birthday cake for him in No. 10 but he didn’t eat any,” a source said.
News Corp Australia dropped some Tim Tams to Johnson after he used them in a video to promote a trade deal, but it may have been hard to resist trying them though.
Ms Symonds was able to get away for a break to Italy in September, but she was found by the paparazzi with the pictures splashed in the papers.
Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy Group, said that pay rises for MPs were a hard sell in Britain.
They still painfully remember the 2009 expenses scandal, which highlighted the rorts of parliamentary coffers, including a 1625 GBP ($2918 AUD) for a Stockholm duck house in a pond at the house of Sir Peter Viggers.
“The question of MPs salaries goes back to the expenses scandal at the time of the financial crisis,” she said.
“It’s a sensitive one for them. Transparency is important to the British people.”
However, she said that there was a problem with MPs pay in comparison to the private sector, particularly when there are big money jobs on offer in London’s City financial district.
“It’s always a difficult comparison when you talk about MPs salaries, because MPs are considered as public servants,” she said.
“One of the unfortunate consequences of the way the system has been set up is that it tended to favour people who come into it with independent wealth.
“I don’t think people go into politics to make money.”