On Saturday, the Times reported that Boris Johnson had tried to hire his wife as his chief of staff when he was secretary of state. But almost as soon as the article was released to printers, it was withdrawn, without explanation or clarification. The piece, written by veteran lobbyist Simon Walters, a former Daily Mail and Mail correspondent on Sunday, appeared on page five of some early Saturday copies of the Times, but was withdrawn for later editions. It does not appear that the article was ever published on the Times website. The story extended to allegations in a biography of Carrie Johnson by Tory donor and peer Lord Ashcroft that Johnson had tried to appoint her to a government job at .000 100,000 a year when she was foreign minister in 2018. He said the idea had collapsed when his closest advisers learned of the idea of hiring the head of the Tories press, then known as Carrie Symonds, whom he later married. Johnson was still married at the time to Marina Wheeler, a lawyer. A source familiar with the situation told the Guardian that this account was correct. However, a spokeswoman for Carrie Johnson was adamant. “These allegations are completely untrue,” he said. Downing Street declined to give an up-to-date answer to the story, but a No. 10 source also said the story was untrue – and suggested it was sexist. “It’s a horrible, discredited story that has been rejected by most reputable media outlets because it is not true. The facts speak for themselves. “ Walters told the Guardian: “I’m going down in history. I went to all the relevant people for two days. “Nobody offered me an on-the-record denial and Downing St did not deny it even off-record.” The Times reporters were confused by the decision to withdraw Saturday’s news, with many sources suggesting that there was a high-level intervention to remove it. The newspaper’s editor, John Witherow, is reportedly out of work. Tony Gallagher, his deputy, edited the paper on Friday, with several sources saying he had called for the story to be dropped from later editions. A News UK spokesman declined to comment on why an article appearing prominently in possibly hundreds of thousands of print newspapers had been removed from later editions without explanation. Walters recently resigned from his senior position at the Daily Mail, where he first revealed the scandal surrounding the renovations of the Downing Street apartment by Carrie Johnson. MailOnline rewrote the Times story about the proposed government post for Carrie Johnson in the early hours of Saturday, but has since also deleted its article without explanation or author’s note. News aggregation sites have also deleted copies of their MailOnline article. The removal of the article can be an example of the Streisand phenomenon – where attempts to delete information from the internet make the public much more interested in it. Alastair Campbell, the former No. 10 communications director under Tony Blair, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that the disappearance of the story seems to be “further proof that many of us are essentially an extension of the office of a liar and a swindler.” ». He also said that the owner of the Times, Rupert Murdoch, had “done so much damage to journalism”.
