Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
The PM has been photographed in the Cabinet Office, Westminster Cathedral and Downing Street.
On what dates and at what times? Not dispositive; circumstantial, at best—which is a problem when dealing with a known liar.

There is no evidence he's been in Perugia besides a Press Release mentioning him that has now been said to have named him in error.
The press release explicitly mentioned both Blair and Johnson, which is what made the initial explanation about a simple mix-up implausible. Moreover, the tweet you linked to contains an important factual error in the statement from the chairman of the airport's board: there was, in fact, another flight from the UK on the 12th—a private flight from Farnborough allegedly carrying only one (private) passenger, who (it was later asserted) was not Johnson. One charitable and parsimonious explanation is not a simple mix-up but a case of Chinese whispers (notwithstanding testimony from other sources working at the airport). A second possible—albeit less plausible—explanation is that Johnson went through there recently but not on that particular weekend, and the people who say they saw him were confused about the dates rather than about the person.

And why would they even deny he was there if he was, given that there'd be no issue with him being there? Italy is on the authorised travel corridor list at the minute.
The PM skipping off to another country to hang out with a Russian oligarch in the middle of several developing crises is a big deal—it would've indicated a lack of prudence & reliability, and would've looked incredibly dodgy to boot (much like a previous dodgy trip to hang out with the same oligarch).

You sounds like a conspiracy nutjob.
I have strongly negative priors when it comes to your PM's and his subordinates' truthfulness—and justifiably so. I therefore require compelling independent corroboration of their claims. In this case, the most compelling refutation of the initial reporting would've been clear evidence of Johnson being in the UK on Saturday evening or all through Sunday. However, I'm willing to provisionally accept the airport's claims—allegedly corroborated by local police—re. no other Brit but Blair being a passenger on the flights in question. Good thing a diligent journalist was able to get to the bottom of the matter.