Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
They have denied the story outright, which there is no reason to do if its not true

- if he was in Perugia for a weekend then that would be entirely fine. Italy isn't under travel restrictions.

However on the weekend in question at the times he was meant to be in Perugia he has been: photographed in the Cabinet Office (Friday evening while video messaging the Parliamentary Conservative Party as mentioned after he was supposedly in Perugia), photographed in Westminster Cathedral (while supposedly in Perugia), photographed in Downing Street (Monday morning, before he supposedly returned from Perugia, a photo snapped by the Paparazzi and used on the front cover of the Evening Standard).

Someone has clearly got their facts wrong, but it doesn't seem to be Downing Street.
The only problem is that there is a detailed official statement that explicitly identifies Johnson as having been in Perugia that weekend (in addition to Blair), and at least two sources at the airport who agree that Johnson was there recently. The later unofficial clarification from the pres. of the airport, in contrast, is not very compelling. We're seeing now what happens when a leader and his subordinates gain a global reputation for lying—people can't take them at their word, even on those occasions when they might actually be telling the truth. The PMs visit to a Russian oligarch, at a particularly fraught time, would absolutely be the kind of thing a liar might deem to be worth lying about. The mystery will be solved once the passengers on the flights in question are identified, and locatable photos of Johnson that Saturday and Sunday eventually emerge.