18 May 2023 , 06:04
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Raging Boris Johnson warned he would punch “lickspittle” Emmanuel Macron’s lights out in an angry tirade in No10, his former spin doctor has said.
The PM threatened an “orgy of frog bashing” after the French President criticised his handling of the Ukrainian refugee crisis.
Guto Harri, who was his director of communications, said he described Mr Macron as a “four-letter word that begins with C, a weirdo and Putin's lickspittle”.
Speaking on his podcast Unprecedented, the former aide revealed Mr Johnson became angry after the French president’s criticism of his response to the desperate people wanting to leave Ukraine was leaked to the British press.
"Much as Boris is not prone to getting really cross, nor using particularly strong language, this was one where he really flipped at our morning meeting," he said.
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Volodymyr Zelensky told Boris Johnson he feared being assassinated by Russian special forces (UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SER)"He just launched into a violent attack on Emmanuel Macron. Basically, saying 'He's a four-letter word that begins with C, he's a weirdo, he's Putin's lickspittle.
“We need to go studs up on this one… We need an orgy of frog bashing. I'm going to have to punch his lights out'."
Mr Harri said the two leaders had patched up their differences before a G7 summit a few weeks later.
On the podcast, Mr Harri also recounted the night Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Shortly after 4am Mr Johnson spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky.
“He was anxious, but very calm, considering what was underway,” Mr Harri recalled. “It was harrowing, it was haunting.
“He brought it alive to all of us. It was massively sobering. We really could not believe that this was seriously underway.
Guto Harri has made a podcast series on his short time in No10 (Getty Images)“A superpower advancing on a neighbour who had done nothing to provoke it.
“Boris could not have been clearer that we were there to help the Ukraine in whichever way we possibly could, using whatever we could possibly deploy within reason.
“But at that moment in time, I think it was a man-to-man thing where he was basically imagining himself in that bunker in his own capital city with foreign troops advancing on that city and his life at risk’
Asked by Mr Johnson how he was himself, Mr Harri said the Ukrainian president replied: ”I'm okay, I've got good people, but you never know when Russian Special Forces are crawling all over your city.
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“I just hope this is not the last time you and I speak.”
The former aide added: "The two of them had this extraordinary bond. And, dare I mention it, this kind of really dark gallows humour that was obviously a coping mechanism."
The second episode of Unprecedented is available on Global Player.
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