Boris Johnson: "They Were Looking at Engineering the Virus” & “The Government Tried To Bribe Me!"

Steven Bartlett interviews Boris Johnson across a wide-ranging two-and-a-half-hour conversation tied to his memoir 'Unleashed'. The first stretch covers his childhood, his mother's OCD and psychiatric hospitalisation, his parents' divorce, and how he turned to work and a comedic persona as self-defense. They then debate the systemic unfairness of elite schooling (Eton) and his 'leveling up' agenda, before a long, combative exchange over Brexit in which Bartlett presses him with economic statistics and Johnson insists he has no regrets. The final third tackles the pandemic: Johnson's slow initial reaction, the lab-leak theory, whether lockdowns even worked, the death of his mother in 2021, and the Partygate scandal, which he reframes as overblown while admitting he mishandled the apologies.

• Says David Cameron told him 'I will f*** you up forever' if he backed Leave, while offering him a top-five cabinet job to back Remain.
  00:59:40
• Reveals one of his own children immediately told him 'you'll have to come out for leave' the night he decided.
  01:00:42
• Confirms via his book that he and Michael Gove never discussed a future Leave-based government because they didn't expect to be in charge.
  00:54:56
• States the COVID virus 'almost certainly was a lab accident' resulting from gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
  01:19:54
• Asked directly if he regrets Brexit after a barrage of negative economic stats, answers 'not at all, not at all'.
  01:08:32
• Concedes the pandemic may 'to a large extent' have followed its natural course regardless of lockdowns.
  01:28:50
• Disputes the Partygate narrative, insisting he was fined only for standing at his cabinet-room desk, with no cake, music or dancing.
  01:38:46
• States he has eight children and is baffled by public obsession with the number.
  01:47:38

• Roughly 20 of the 57 UK prime ministers (about 35%) were educated at Eton.
  00:25:04
• Johnson's family moved house 32 times in 14 years.
  00:04:39
• His mother was hospitalised in a psychiatric facility for about eight months when he was 10 years old.
  00:09:23
• Johnson attended Eton on a scholarship funded by the legacy of Henry VI.
  01:41:49
• Claims the UK vaccinated 45% of adults and nearly 100% of over-80s by March 2021 thanks to post-Brexit regulatory freedom.
  00:53:22
• Says London's murder rate was cut by roughly 50% during his time as mayor.
  00:41:18
• Johnson says he does not read social media himself, calling it virulent and oppressive for politicians.
  01:06:58
• The interview ran about two and a half hours versus the hour Johnson expected.
  01:47:08
• Admits he had a rupture with Michael Gove in 2016 but later put him back in the cabinet.
  01:51:17

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