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Britain’s Trump: New U.K. Prime Minister Was Recorded Plotting ‘A Couple Of Black Eyes’ For Reporter

Britain’s Trump: New U.K. Prime Minister Was Recorded Plotting ‘A Couple Of Black Eyes’ For Reporter

Boris Johnson
In 1990, new U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was involved in what has become known as the “Guppygate” scandal. Photo: Annika Haas (EU2017EE)

Boris Johnson, the new U.K. Prime Minister, conspired 29 years ago to give a fellow journalist “a couple of black eyes” and a “cracked rib”.

In 1990, Johnson worked as the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent. In what is now known as the “Guppygate” scandal, he was recorded agreeing to give his close friend Darius Guppy the home address of investigative journalist Stuart Collier so that Guppy could send people to beat Collier up.

Collier, who never pressed charges after learning about the secret plot that never actually happened, recently demanded an apology from the conservative leader who now occupies Downing Street as the U.K.’s new Prime Minister.

“I do think he (Johnson) should definitely apologize,” Collier told The Guardian.

“I’ve been more incensed reading over the stories about him in the newspaper and it strikes me as being scandalous he could have possibly been in league with Darius Guppy in a plot to get me beat up,” Collier added.


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Johnson and Guppy met while at Oxford University where they were both members of the Bullingdon Club, an exclusive all-male dining club for university undergraduates.

Confronted about the leaked  21-minute recording in which he said, “I’ll do it”, Johnson told the BBC in 2013 he only “humoured” Guppy in the phone conversation but did not have any intention to give up Collier’s address and never did.

Guppy was jailed in 1993 after staging a fake jewelry robbery in New York three years earlier and fraudulently claiming £1.8m from insurers, according to The Guardian.