No10’s dubious in tent

Camp trip was ruse to hide a shambolic PM

A PHONE rings and Gavin Williamson answers.

He hears: “Ah, Gavin. Just the man. Been looking for you everywhere. This A-level business, you’re going to have to go and do the telly.”

Understandably, Mr W says: “Oh aye? Where’s the gaffer?”

“Camping. Middle of nowhere. No signal.”

Magnificent timing, Mr Johnson. Of all the weeks to head off on a “wilderness retreat” this was the one to pick.

With the exam crisis, fresh economic worries, and the increased prospect of a second wave, what better time to take a break from running the country?

Mr Johnson was finally tracked down and photographed – in the traditional British August holiday wear of a thick woolly hat – on the Scottish coast.

Mallet

It cost me some money this, as when it was announced earlier this week that the PM was going camping in Scotland, I offered some decent odds that this was absolutely, one hundred per cent, not going to be the case.

He’s not the sort of fella who is going to pile the family in the Volvo, bolt on the roof rack, stick in a Crowded House tape and off you go.

Lots of people agreed. “I just don’t see it,” one Whitehall insider nsider said,

“He doesn’t strike me e as an outdoors type or anyone e who knows their way round nd a rubber mallet. It would be the least successful camping ng trip since Deliverance.”

Correct. It had Bear ar Grylls written all over it. Not the survival skills bit but the e part in Born Survivor where Bear told us he was living in the California wilderness “off just a water bottle, a cup and a flint for making fire” but was really in a B&B that did hot showers and excellent blueberry panc pancakes.

As to my bet bet, there were a couple of takers – weird weirdly there are still people in politics wh who believe everything he says – and I am reluctantly paying out. Althoug Although I am still not sure you can call wha what the Prime Minister is doing c camping. This is because he has pitched his tent fifty

ya yards from a, erm, house. e.

Which he’s living in. It is made of bricks and costs £1,500 a night.

“It’s glamping,” said one staffer, smiling as he pocketed his winnings, “You wouldn’t understand.”

It’s not though, is it? He has no intention of going in that tent unless he sneaks out at night with a torch and some sandwiches to read his comics.

Anyways, his absence has been noted. The latest poll I saw showed that during his time out of town, Tory approval ratings have actually gone up.

I’m not sure of the message here. Does it mean voters think someone in

Downing Street is doing a good job but they’re not certain who it is? Do we prefer leaders when they disappear?

My money, incidentally, was nowhere near Mr Johnson going camping. My money was on him being bound and gagged in the back of Dominic Cummings’s car, only to be released when the crisis is over.

“Have you seen him, Dom?” desperate civil servants would ask, puzzled by the muffled banging.

“Oh I might have,” Mr Cummings would say, leaning on his boot. “But you know how my eyesight is.”