Ex-Home Secretary spots ‘glaring’ flaw in Bodyguard
FORMER Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said there was a “glaring” mistake in the BBC hit series Bodyguard.
The politician revealed he has been enjoying watching the terror thriller, but said there were parts of the drama that just “wouldn’t happen”.
The series starred Keeley Hawes as the home secretary and Richard Madden as David Budd, the officer assigned to protect her, and showed the pair embarking on a passionate affair.
In November 2011, Johnson quit as shadow chancellor after his own police bodyguard was sacked by Scotland Yard following an investigation into an affair with the politician’s wife.
Appearing on ITV’s This Morning, where he was not asked about the affair, Johnson said he spotted a “glaring” scene in the thriller that did not ring true.
Johnson said: “David Budd is in the restaurant with somebody else while the home secretary is having dinner and there are the two coppers plonked down at a table not eating or drinking anything. That wouldn’t happen because big signals are going off, ‘we are bodyguards’. What they do is blend in with the background and when you go for a meal they always come with you but they are there looking like two other diners so of course they have to order food.”
Johnson recalled learning of his promotion to the job while on a train returning to London from his constituency, and said: “When I pulled into King’s Cross I looked down and it was like a scene from a film, there were about five police officers with dogs, there were a lot of protection officers, there was a team of about 10 people waiting for me.”
Frank Armstrong, who served as head of protection for former prime minister Tony Blair, also pointed out errors in the programme that related to the PTSD suffered by Madden’s character.
He said: “To be a protection officer, and certainly in such an important key position, there is a very high level of vetting. Your background is really looked into ... I don’t think he would have passed muster. He would have been out early on.”