Laura Kuenssberg’s Boris Johnson gaffe was bad – but these are even worse

The BBC journalist accidentally sent the former PM her notes: cue, cancelled interview. And Ryan Coogan has a few confessions of his own…

Laura Kuenssberg meets with Boris Johnson in 2021 (BBC)

We’ve all done it, haven’t we? Accidentally sent a message to somebody who wasn’t the intended recipient, I mean. An “I love you” to the group WhatsApp; a sexy picture to your parents; a graphic description of all the ways you’d like to quit your job, straight into your boss’s inbox.

Of course, when many of us mis-send a message, we aren’t a BBC journalist gearing up for an important interview. And even fewer of us are former prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. And the intended communication is rarely, if ever, a series of interview questions designed to unpack the controversial career of former said prime minister.

That’s why it was so unlucky that Laura Kuenssberg accidentally sent Boris Johnson her briefing notes, causing a planned interview with the former PM to be called off the evening before it was due to take place.

Writing on Twitter/X about the gaffe, Kuenssberg said: “While prepping to interview Boris Johnson tomorrow, by mistake I sent our briefing notes to him in a message meant for my team. That obviously means it’s not right for the interview to go ahead.

“It’s very frustrating, and there’s no point pretending it’s anything other than embarrassing and disappointing, as there are plenty of important questions to be asked. But red faces aside, honesty is the best policy. See you on Sunday.”

As easy as it is to clown on the £325,000-a-year presenter for making the kind of mistake an unpaid intern would probably be fired for, it’s understandable (to a point). Like I said, who among us hasn’t embarrassed themselves by looping the wrong person into an email or text thread?

I know I have. On more than one occasion I’ve sent an “I love you message” to a WhatsApp group populated entirely by the exact kind of people who I don’t want to know that I’m capable of affection. And when I say “an ‘I love you’ message”, I don’t mean that I sent the words “I love you” – I sent the kind of sappy, cutesy, overwrought communication that you can only really send to somebody who you’ve been in a relationship with for over a decade – think “I wuv you” on steroids. There were nicknames. There was slang that we’d made up. There were so, so many emojis.

But that’s pretty tame compared to some of the other stories I’ve heard. One person told me that, upon waking up to some flirty text messages from a coworker, she intended to forward them to a friend to show them how desperate he was being. Except she didn’t forward it to her friend – instead, she sent them right back to the guy, along with the message “I want guy’s name to leave me alone”. Apparently she talked her way out of it by telling him that she was joking, but I think the poor fella was just willing to clamber aboard any life raft that came along to rescue his dignity. He believed her.

Another said they’d screenshotted the profile picture of a girl he liked so that he could send it to a friend and, presumably, talk about how much he valued her intelligence. Luckily he was punished for his hubris when he sent it to the girl instead, to which she responded “????????” – the death knell of any budding flirtationship. (I’ve since been told that the only way out of this situation is to pretend that you meant to send it by saying “this is a great picture of you!”, but even then you only have a 50/50 chance of not coming across like a creep).

One said that, shortly after kissing a beautiful woman, he texted said beautiful woman “OH MY GOD, I JUST KISSED BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???” It’s a rare example of an inadvertent text potentially working in one’s favour – apparently this beautiful woman took my friend’s enthusiasm as a compliment, and was very open to kissing him again.

And then there’s this classic, from another friend. The Mona Lisa of inadvertent messaging: “I accidentally sent a picture of myself naked on the toilet to the work group chat.” Pure poetry.

It’s the kind of thing that’s almost impossible to avoid. Personally, when I’m about to talk smack about one of my friends or send something racy, I quadruple check that I’m in the right chat. Even then I’ll not entirely trust myself, and check three or four times after the message has been sent that it hasn’t gone to the wrong person.

It’s an anxiety-inducing process, and one that often leads to disaster, but what else am I supposed to do? Not send incriminating messages, or talk about people behind their backs? Let’s be realistic here. It’s half the fun of owning a phone.

Still though, the next time you tell your bros you love them, or accidentally trash your date right to your date’s face, just take solace in the fact that you didn’t have to cancel an interview with a former world leader because of it.