No10 pranksters fail to fool the PM

BORIS JOHNSON has been dragged into many an April Fools joke over the years.

But last week he was the target of pranksters as his Downing Street staff tried to trick him into believing a number of bogus reports.

On Thursday – April 1 – the Prime Minister’s normal bundle of Covid updates and cuttings from the day’s newspapers also included some fake news, slipped in by mischievous aides. They included a false document which revealed the existence of a Museum of Agricultural Technology and a Museum of Museums that had been created by previous Labour governments and were still receiving taxpayers’ money – despite having closed down years ago.

The spoof report – said to be a ‘war on waste’ investigation into quangos – claimed that the establishments had been receiving Government money every year since 2009 at a total cost of £2 million.

Another bogus item in the red box claimed that Michael Gove was planning to use his Duchy of Lancaster title to brand a new range of high-quality food products – such as sausages – to rival the Duchy Originals range so successfully launched by Prince Charles.

The PM’s aides, aware that their boss had once had a range of Yorkshire sausages named ‘Boris bangers’ in his honour, hoped he would fall for the story.

Sadly, the porker-loving Prime Minister saw straight through the April Fool.

Over the years, April Fools reports in the media have claimed Boris’s picture was to adorn a series of postage stamps commemorating Britain’s departure from the EU; that he wanted to launch Boris Boards – hoverboards for hourly hire in London similar to the successful bike scheme; and that he planned to concrete over the country’s canals to create a nationwide cycle superhighway.

Another report crossing Mr Johnson’s desk on Thursday contained the ludicrous claim that French President Emmanuel Macron was congratulating himself on his handling of his country’s Covid crisis, just as it spiralled into another lockdown – but that turned out to be absolutely true.