PM’s mystery jaunt: does Boris Johnson have an ‘Italian doppelganger’?

The strange story of the prime minister’s alleged recent break in Perugia - and Downing Street’s denials

Boris Johnson
The strange story of the prime minister’s alleged recent break in Perugia - and Downing Street’s denials 
(Image credit: Aaron Chown/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Boris Johnson has a track record of slipping away from his security detail to attend parties thrown by billionaire socialites - and according to Italian media, he’s at it again.

Back in July 2019, The Guardian was tipped off that Johnson had been spotted the previous year at an airport in Italy “looking like he had slept in his clothes”, after partying with media owner Evgeny Lebedev in his converted castle near Perugia.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.