Boris Johnson comms chief joked about ‘drone strike’ on Partygate investigator: ‘We’ll take Sue Gray out’

Guto Harri, who was Mr Johnson’s head of communications, said the former prime minister was ‘hysterical’ the night before Sue Gray published her Partygate report

Former prime minister Boris Johnson was said to be ‘hystertical’ the night before Sue Gray published her report into lockdown-breaking gatherings at Downing Street (PA Wire)

Boris Johnson’s head of communications joked about ordering a “drone strike” on Partygate investigator Sue Gray.

Guto Harri said he made the comment in a bid to calm down the former prime minister who was “hysterical” the night before the former senior civil servant published her report into Downing Street gatherings that breached lockdown rules.

Mr Harri said: “Boris, look at me. Look at me. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to order a drone strike.

“Wel’ll take her out. We’ll take Sue Gray out.”

The extraordinary joke, revealed on Mr Harri’s podcast Unprecedented: Inside Downing street, laid bare Mr Johnson’s dislike for Ms Gray, whose Partygate scandal found there was “a serious failure” by Mr Johnson’s No 10 to abide by the “standards expected of the entire British population” during the Covid pandemic.

Mr Harri said: “He started referring to Sue Gray as ‘the psycho’ or ‘the total psycho’, someone who was planning an ‘orgy of pain, abuse and humiliation’.

“On another occasion, she was the ‘destroyer of the nation’ trying to do us in.”

Mr Johnson “expected Ms Gray to be tough but fair”, Mr Harri claimed. “That changed pretty soon after I'd arrived at No. 10,” he added.

Mr Harri took over as director of communications for the former prime minister in February last year. He previously served as a key aide to Mr Johnson while he was mayor of London.

He claimed that, “in calmer times”, the then-prime minister “joked about Sue Gray”, even telling people “he would be able to move on once he was acquitted of genocidal war crimes”.

Mr Johnson and Mr Harri, who took over as director of communications for the former prime minister in February last year (PA Archive)

Mr Harri added: “But it all came to a head on the eve of the publication of her report, when he would have to go and present this in Parliament and face the music in a big, big way.

“We were struggling to make any progress because he was getting more and more angry, uncharacteristically sweary and cross, the more he thought about the impact of this and what Sue Gray had done to his premiership.”

At one point Mr Johnson was “literally hysterical”, he said.

Mr Harri’s comments came as Boris Johnson was referred to police by the Cabinet Office over new potential lockdown breaches at Chequers. Also on Thursday, the official Covid inquiry threatened legal action over the Cabinet Office’s refusal to share details of the former PMs Whatsapp messages from the pandemic, as Mr Johnson revealed he had sacked his legal team.

Previous claims by Mr Harri as part of the poscast series, on Global Player, include that Mr Johnson joked about sending a message to Rishi Sunak calling him a “c***” in the aftermath of his resignation as chancellor.

He also said Mr Johnson “squared up” to King Charles for branding his Rwanda asylum policy “appalling”.