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Boris Johnson photographed on camping holiday in Scotland during exam results crisis

Prime minister had kept location of time away a secret, but tracked down by newspaper

Tim Wyatt
Friday 21 August 2020 14:04 BST
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Boris Johnson, seen here at his home in Oxfordshire, has left Westminster for a holiday in Scotland
Boris Johnson, seen here at his home in Oxfordshire, has left Westminster for a holiday in Scotland (PA)

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Boris Johnson, who has been accused of hiding during the exam results fiasco, has been tracked down while on holiday in Scotland.

The prime minister had not commented on either the outrage over downgraded A-Level results or the U-turn after ministers decided to revert to using original teacher assessments of students.

Since the weekend Mr Johnson, his fiancée Carrie Symonds and their young son Wilfred have been on holiday in a remote cottage on the Scottish coast.

Number 10 initially declined to reveal where the prime minister had chosen to travel to and insisted he would not end his break to take charge of the exam results crisis.

But now the Daily Mail has found the couple and published photos of Mr Johnson, and the cottage and bell tent he has been staying in with his family.

The newspaper has chosen not to reveal where exactly in Scotland the cottage is, but report it costs £1,500 a week to rent during the peak summer months.

Previous prime ministers, including Theresa May and David Cameron, have allowed the press to take limited photographs of them on holiday, in return for privacy. But Mr Johnson’s office had refused to tell the media where he had gone.

Although the PM has so far not yielded to pressure from opposition MPs and the media to return to Westminster, he has tweeted his congratulations to pupils receiving their GCSE results on Thursday, and also took to Twitter to thank those involved in the successful prosecution of Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber.

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