BORIS Johnson has dismissed speculation that he’s struggling with long covid as "balderdash".
The Prime Minister has been dogged by rumours that he’s still suffering from the bout of coronavirus that forced him into intensive care at the end of March.
Questions over his long-term health have been mounting in recent weeks, with backbench Tories and commentators openly questioning if the disease could be responsible for the Prime Minster’s distracted, and lethargic performances.
At the end of August, Sir Humphry Wakefield, the father-in-law of Dominic Cummings even told a friend that the Prime Minister was still suffering from the after-effects of the virus and would soon be standing down.
“If you put a horse back to work when it’s injured it will never recover,” Wakefield said in comments reported by the Times.
One Number 10 source told the paper: “He’s pin sharp one day and then he will say to somebody in his own inimitable way ‘Why have you not briefed me on that?’ and he’ll be told ‘You were told that yesterday.’”
The source added: “Physically I think Covid has had a huge impact, definitely.”
Last month the Times columnist Alice Thomson quoted a family friend of Johnson saying that “even now he still has good and bad days”.
TV presenter Piers Morgan tweeted: “He is lonely, he is ill.”
Johnson’s bout of coronavirus was extremely serious.
Asked directly by the BBC’s Andrew Marr if he had long Covid, the Prime Minister said: “No, I had a nasty bout of it no question.”
The Prime Minister described the speculation as “dribble” and “balderdash”.
Marr said it was “very, very important” for the country to know that the Prime Minister is fit and honest about his health.
Johnson replied: "It's anthropologically crucial”.
“I am fitter than several butchers' dogs,” he insisted.
“The issue is that when I, alas, got this wretched thing, I was too fat. And if I may say so this is a teachable moment for our great country. We are one of the world's greatest places on earth, but alas, as a nation we are slightly too fat.
“We are fatter than virtually anybody else in Europe. Apart from the Maltese for some reason. And we need to think about this.”
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