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Rachel Johnson’s defence of Boris Johnson might not be the slam-dunk she thinks it is

John Plunkett. Updated May 24th, 2023

As you might already have seen by now, Boris Johnson has been referred to the police by the Cabinet Office over new claims he broke lockdown rules at Downing Street and Chequers during the coronavirus pandemic.

The best thing – the very best thing – about this is that the Cabinet Office was obliged to pass on the information to the police because the legal fees were being covered by the taxpayer.

If he’d paid for his own lawyers, this probably wouldn’t have made it into the public domain (and you can read our 23 favourite reactions to the story here).

But we mention it again because the former PM’s sister Rachel Johnson was on LBC leaping to the defence of her brother, except it might not have been the slam-dunk she thought it was.

And it prompted no end of replies from people saying things like this.

https://twitter.com/MrsVB/status/1661111757513826330?s=20

It remains to be seen exactly what the circumstances were of her visit(s), of course, as well as the outcome of Boris Johnson’s referral to the police (he has written to the Cabinet Office denying that he broke strict lockdown rules).

Source Twitter @LBC