BORIS: I QUIT!
SENSATION AS PM REELS OVER ‘BODIES PILED HIGH’ COMMENT
BORIS Johnson yesterday told colleagues “Back me or I quit” in a “heated” Cabinet meeting.
The PM has been under increasing pressure thanks to a row over who paid for renovations to his official flat and claims he said he would rather see “bodies pile high” than approve a third lockdown.
And going head-to-head with senior colleagues, including Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove at Number 10 yesterday, the PM threatened to go nuclear just days before local government elections and the Hartlepool by-election on May 6.
Mr Johnson is said to be particularly angry at what he sees as less-than-full public support from slippery Michael Gove.
On Monday Mr Gove, a front-runner to replace Boris if he fell, said he had “never heard” the PM talk of piled bodies, cleverly avoiding denying Mr Johnson had uttered the words.
A senior source said: “When Boris is in a corner, he comes out fighting.
“And he knows he’s fighting for his political life now.
Shocking
“The row over who paid for [ PM consort] Carrie’s new curtains is one thing, but the allegations he said he’s rather see bodies piled high are much more serious.”
The PM has strongly denied using the words, first reported in Monday’s Daily Mail, describing the reports as “total rubbish”.
Independent sources have confirmed to both the BBC and ITV News that the PM did use the shocking language.
On Monday, the UK’s top civil servant Simon Case said Mr Johnson had asked him to review how a refurbishment of the No 11 flat was funded – after former spin chief Dominic Cummings alleged the PM once planned to have donors “secretly pay” for the revamp.
Spooks at MI5 have now been brought in to find the source of repeated damaging leaks from Number 10.
The leaker has been nicknamed “chatty rat”.
Our source said: “Cabinet ministers have to weigh this carefully. On the one hand, Boris is a proven winner who delivered a thumping majority and is very popular in the country.
“On the other hand, they will be reluctant to strongly back Boris’s denials he talked about piles of bodies.
“Remember, he once called claims he was having an affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt as ‘ an inverted pyramid of piffle’ and it turned out he’d been hanging out the back of her for years. “Ministers will be aware that if they nail their colours too firmly to Boris’s mast, they may sink with him.”