Boris Johnson reveals how Queen was ‘absolutely on it’ and ‘so bright and so focused… given how ill she obviously was’ during their final meeting – just two days before Her Majesty’s death
- Boris Johnson describes how Queen was ‘absolutely on it’ during final meeting
- Ex-PM says Her Majesty was ‘so bright and so focused’ during Balmoral audience
- Death was announced little more than 48 hours after she met outgoing premier
- Full coverage: Click here to see all our coverage of the Queen’s passing
Boris Johnson has described how the Queen was ‘absolutely on it’ and ‘so bright and so focused’ in his final meeting with Her Majesty – just two days before her death.
The ex-premier met with the Queen at Balmoral last Tuesday in order to formally resign as prime minister.
Their meeting came shortly before Her Majesty met with Liz Truss in order to appoint the new Tory leader as Mr Johnson’s successor.
The Queen’s audiences with Mr Johnson and Ms Truss last week proved to be among her final acts in her 70-year reign as monarch.
Her death was announced little more than 48 hours later.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Johnson has described how the news of Her Majesty’s death was ‘so shocking’ because of how ‘bright and focused’ the 96-year-old had been in their meeting earlier in the week.
But the former PM did reveal how the Queen was ‘clearly not well’.
The Queen met with Boris Johnson – and his successor Liz Truss – at Balmoral last Tuesday. The audiences came just two days before Her Majesty’s death
Mr Johnson described how the Queen was ‘absolutely on it’ during their meeting in Scotland last week
‘The last audience I had with her – one of the reasons it was so shocking on the 8th, to hear about her death – was because in that audience, she had been absolutely on it,’ Mr Johnson said.
‘Just two days before her death. She was actively focused on geopolitics, on UK politics, quoting statesmen from the 1950s, it was quite extraordinary.
‘She seemed very bright, very focused. Look, she was clearly not well.
‘I think that was the thing that I found so moving when I heard about her death, when we all heard about her death on Thursday, two days later.
‘I just thought how incredible that her sense of duty had kept her going in the way that it had.
‘Given how ill she obviously was, how amazing that she should be so bright and so focused. So it was a pretty emotional time.’
During his premiership, Mr Johnson was forced to issue an apology to the Queen after it was revealed Covid lockdown-busting parties had been held in Downing Street on the eve of the funeral of her husband, Prince Philip.
But the former PM insisted the issue ‘never came up’ during his weekly audiences with the Queen.
‘Because of her great sense of constitutional function she never got into that sort of conversation,’he said.
‘She was really absolutely focused on what she saw as the important issues.
‘It’s a very trusting environment, the audience with Her Majesty. So that never came up.’
Mr Johnson described how he and the late monarch discussed ‘just about everything under the sun’ during their weekly talks.
He added the audiences were ‘a fantastic break from everything else’ and ‘a wonderful moment of tranquillity’.
Paying tribute to the Queen’s broadcast to the nation during the first Covid lockdown in April 2020, Mr Johnson said the message was ‘incredibly important’ and said pop stars ‘wouldn’t have the same impact as that broadcast’.
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