Boris Johnson is deeply protective of his personal life – but one thing almost universally acknowledged by those who know him is that he has a tricky relationship with money.
Another described him as a “wheeler-dealer”, and claimed that at the time, staff in Downing Street felt there were some “quite ridiculous arrangements going on” to fund his lifestyle – referring to the way Johnson’s flat redecoration was initially funded before he repaid the costs personally. When the redecoration of the Downing Street flat where he lived with his wife, Carrie, and their children was under way, some of the funding initially came from a Conservative peer, David Brownlow.
“Thatcher paid for her own ironing board, and declined two extra sets of taxpayer-funded bedsheets because she was not only naturally thrifty, but also very concerned about the optics,” Slocock said. As well as the flat redesign, Johnson is also believed to have incurred high costs from an expensive divorce from his ex-wife, Marina Wheeler. If his at least seven children have benefited from costly private schooling, that could also have quickly added up to six-figure sums.