Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Affair should knock stuffing out of premier
DO you think it was a Chesterfield sofa or an IKEA Klippan loveseat?
Did Boris hump his lover on a camel back couch in the living room at his marital home – or was it a leather two-seater?
Jennifer Arcuri failed to reveal the style of sofa on which they romped. But I’ve come to the conclusion it must have been a futon.
Because a bloke who would have sex with his mistress on the family settee really can’t get any lower.
Boris Johnson is a serial love rat who doesn’t know the meaning of fidelity. Before he “settled down” with fiancee Carrie Symonds our priapic Prime Minister seemed to revel in his rakish reputation.
And his shameless philandering had little effect on his popularity with the Tory faithful.
But the details of his four-year affair with the American businesswoman must surely change all that.
Because they call into question his character and suitability to lead this country.
They show he lacks the most basic qualities we expect in our public figures - like honesty, integrity and decency. And they raise public interest concerns about whether he breached ethical standards by giving his mistress access to high-level trade missions and tens of thousands in taxpayer-funded grants.
So, could Sofagate finally knock the stuffing out of Boris Johnson’s premiership? And what have Ms Arcuri’s revelations taught us about Boris the man and Boris the politician?
Well, we know he can’t cook, but tried to make cheesy pasta when he asked her round for sex at his marital home while his QC wife Marina Wheeler was at work. But he’d forgotten the cheese and had to pop to the shop, leaving Ms Arcuri free to wander the marital home and take a selfie.
“Alexander the Great”, as she called him, wasn’t very clued up about technology, and had a knackered old phone without encrypted apps. So the smutty texts and requests for naked photos put him at real risk of cyber attacks.
Pompous, reckless, arrogant, entitled and morally bankrupt.
This is the “honourable member” we have trusted to run our country.
Anyone who says Boris’s private life is not our business must need their head examined. Because this affair not only exposes his personal character flaws, it raises questions about his public duty.
Last year the Independent Office for Police Conduct said there was no evidence of criminality in his dealings with Arcuri or the string of public grants she received.
But he still faces a probe by the Greater London Authority into whether he acted with “honesty and integrity” or breached the code of conduct while he was Mayor. So we must wait to find out whether Boris is a sleazy politician as well as a sleazy lover.
But what on earth must Carrie be making of this grubby affair?
Perhaps she’s thinking back to their own sofa bust-up in June 2019 which resulted in the police being called to her flat in the early hours.
Neighbours heard Boris and Carrie screaming at each other after she accused him of ruining her couch by spilling his red wine. “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt,” she yelled. But the one thing Boris Johnson DOES care about is power.
And he may come to rue the day he got down and dirty with his American lover on his own family’s sofa.
Before he met Carrie he seemed to revel in his rakish reputation