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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Zoe Forsey & Jennifer Newton

Boris Johnson scolded by staff for 'sharing Queen's brutally honest comment from meeting'

Boris Johnson is preparing to bid farewell to the Queen as he packs his bags to leave Number 10 after stepping down as Prime Minister.

The 96-year-old Monarch always has close relationships with her PMs, speaking to whoever is leading the country every Wednesday.

However Johnson's first official meeting with the Queen after taking office didn't go smoothly, and a huge protocol breach saw him get a scolding from his staff just hours after taking the top job. During a tour of his new home after the royal meeting, he shared details of their conversation which should have been kept secret.

EuroNews journalist Vincent McAviney has claimed the new PM admitted the Queen had made a brutally honest comment during their short chat.

Follow our Tory leadership result live blog here.

The Queen invites Boris Johnson to form a government in June 2019 (Getty Images)

He claims she said: "I don’t know why anyone would want the job".

According to McAviney, staff quickly then told him "not to repeat those things so loudly".

As Head of State, the Queen has the job of officially appointing the Prime Minister, however she is tied by constitutional conventions to appoint who the party picks. According to the Royal Family's website "the main requirement is to find someone who can command the confidence of the House of Commons."

The Queen will meet either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak to ask them to form a Government on her behalf after saying her goodbyes to Johnson. An official photo of their meeting will be released to mark the historical moment.

She reportedly sometimes offers the new leader a few pieces of advice on running the country, but these aren't normally made public.

(PA)

The Queen has worked with 14 PMs during her 70-year reign - from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson.

Winston Churchill was the first PM the Queen worked with after her father George VI's early death in 1952.

They were reportedly very close, and he was said to be a "formidable presence for the young monarch", who was just 26 at the time.

Nicholas Soames, Churchill's grandson, said: "I think the Queen valued my grandfather's experience, and he of course loved the Queen. He did love her.

"I mean, she aroused in him all his romantic ideas of sovereignty and monarchy."

Royal historian Robert Lacey added: "I think there’s a sense in which all the Queen’s Prime Ministers have been in love with her to a certain degree. But it was most overtly displayed by Churchill.

The Queen with her first Prime Minster Winston Churchill (Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

"He made no pretence at it, there were tears in his eyes when he welcomed her."

The Queen sent Churchill a handwritten letter after he retired in 1955 saying how much she missed him

She wrote that no other PM would would "ever for me be able to hold the place of my first prime minister, to whom both my husband and I owe so much and for whose wise guidance during the early years of my reign I shall always be so profoundly grateful".

However, not all of the relationships have been as positive.

The Queen and her eighth Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher apparently didn't really get on.

In fact, a Buckingham Palace source told a diplomat the monarch actually considered scrapping their weekly meetings all together.

In 2017, Declassified files revealed claimed the Tory PM enraged the Queen by defying Commonwealth leaders in a vote over apartheid.

Files from the National Archives of Ireland show that Thatcher sparked international anger after refusing to back tighter sanctions against South Africa.

The move had been agreed by 47 leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, but Mrs Thatcher refused, thwarting efforts to end apartheid and enraging heads of state.

An Irish diplomat based in London reported back to Dublin that it was widely regarded that the PM had “blundered badly” and “she well knows but cannot admit her mistake”.

After speaking with a source at Buckingham Palace, he sent a confidential message to the Taoiseach’s office. The diplomat wrote: “There is a wide view too that the Queen is in a rage with Mrs Thatcher over her handling of the sanctions (the Queen, it is said, sees the insensitivity as further damaging ‘her’ Commonwealth at a sensitive time).”

Using the nickname Brenda, which was given to the Queen by satirical magazine Private Eye, the diplomat continued: “A source in the palace said that ‘Brenda’ was seriously considering cancelling last night’s Tuesday audience with the prime minister. This audience... has existed for more than a century.”

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