Well let’s see how this story pans out. La Repubblica has a source who saw Boris Johnson at the nearest airport to Lebedev’s palazzo & a flight plan that matches. Downing Street categorically denies it.
BUT there are some pretty inconvenient details. Perugia Airport actually put out a statement on Sept 17 confirming Boris Johnson’s presence at the airport ‘over the past few days’...
And there are some more odd details. A whole lot of activity in & out of the airport with flights coming from London - including Tony Blair - & the dates coincide with the super secretive christening of which no photos were released..
Add in Johnson’s weirdly dodgy central London 20-minute wifi issues on Friday & his cancelled meetings on Monday morning & 🤔
But surely *even* Johnson would not be blatant enough to skip town to meet his ex-KGB mate weeks after refusing to investigate Russian interference & ennobling the KGB mate’s son & then lie about it?!?Surely...
Update: PM’s spokesman says story is ‘completely untrue’. He has not travelled to Italy ‘in recent months’ & repeating it is ‘a falsehood’.
NEW: Before cryptobillionaire Christopher Harborne gave £5m to @nigel_farage, he gave £1m to Boris Johnson. For what??
Today @nerve_news reveals new evidence that tracks Harborne's investments in defence firm QinetiQ...to key defence announcements from Boris Johnson. 1/
Christopher Harborne's £5m gift to Farage is now the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.
But our latest story in #HarborneReceipts raises incredibly serious qs including...did Boris Johnson give Harborne classified defence info he then profited from? 2/
Bravo to the @Gabriel_Pogrund & team. This is the story in plain sight that needed to be nailed. Congrats are in order for getting it over a difficult line.
George Cottrell has operated with impunity at highest levels of UK politics for more than a decade 1/
Sun Times story is the gamechanger we need. But this is a decade-long story that was ignored by papers like Sun Times - as was Farage - for years. Because…Brexit.
Cottrell was central in both Brexit & building Brexit Party in years after 2/
NEW: Boris Johnson failed to declare to parliament a gift of private jet flights from the same cryptobillionaire, Christopher Harborne who gave £5m to Nigel Farage, leaked documents reveal.
New #HarborneReceipts investigation from @thenerve_news 1/
Johnson is now in the frame for breaching for the same parliamentary rules as Farage by accepting a gift from the same donor.
A) This a properly brilliant piece of investigative journalism by BBC & @hopenothate. Huge kudos to all involved.
B) The Kremlin operative who BBC names as directing arson attacks against Keir Starmer was taught his tradecraft by…drumroll…Sergei Nalobin !!! Pictured here with Boris Johnson. Also: the star of our podcast series, Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring! Wtaf
It’s an amazing report which nails how Russia’s hybrid warfare programme actually works & how Russia is explicitly & directly inciting racialised violence in UK - & working with Tommy Robinson to do so - as well as directing acts of violence
against PM.
2/
The stakes couldn’t be any higher. And I was already gripped by the incredible detail of what BBC uncovered - & which apparently Met police had missed - when Sergei Nalobin suddenly enters the chat..as a tutor to the guy who directed entire UK sabotage operation.
A new investigation by @thenerve_news has found Palantir has recruited more than 30 senior officials from UK govt, a strategy transparency experts say poses an ‘acute risk’ of corruption. 1/
Link ⬇️
Palantir recruited the two most senior AI strategists from the Ministry of Defence & NHS…& won multimillion £ contracts with both, a pattern repeated across the UK govt. 2/