PM blasts story that he’s still sick and is set to quit
DOWNING Street yesterday denied claims by Dominic Cummings’ fatherin-law that Boris Johnson would quit within six months.
A newspaper diary column quoted Sir Humphry Wakefield as suggesting the Prime Minister was poised to resign because of the ongoing impact of contracting coronavirus earlier this year.
Mr Cummings, who created a storm after allegedly flouting lockdown rules, is the PM’s top adviser and a staunch ally.
A No10 source branded the claims that the PM was preparing to go and that he was still suffering the after-effects of the disease as “utter nonsense”.
Mr Johnson himself rubbished the idea that he’d leave office as “absolute nonsense”. Speaking on a visit to Appledore shipyard in Devon, he also insisted he was not suffering the effects of his battle with Covid-19, saying: “I am feeling, if anything, far better as I’ve lost some weight.”
The Times had cited journalist Anna Silverman, who last week visited Sir Humphry’s home, Chillingham Castle in It said the knight, father of Mr Cummings’ wife Mary, “merrily informed her that Boris Johnson is still struggling badly with having had Covid-19 (as if being a new father and needing to babysit Gavin Williamson isn’t tiring enough) and will stand down in six months. A keen rider, Wakefield [added] ‘If you put a horse back to work when it’s injured it will never recover’.”
Mr Johnson, 56, has had a rollercoaster 13 months – becoming PM, winning a landslide election victory, getting divorced, getting engaged, almost dying from coronavirus and becoming a father again. Johnson yesterday His brush with death came after he announced on March 27 that he had Covid-19, with “mild symptoms” and was self-isolating.
On April 5 he was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital in Central London, and spent three nights in intensive care. He returned to work in No10 on April 27 after recuperating at Chequers his country retreat. Bookies yesterday offered odds of 4/1 on his being replaced as PM next year.