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Boris Johnson tasked security force to plan a raid on a vaccine plant in the Netherlands
(www.theguardian.com)
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Covid-19 inquiry is not until Wednesday but it is already making headlines in the Netherlands amid a mixture of amusement and alarm at claims he asked for British spies to plan a “raid” on a Dutch vaccine plant.
The operation – according to sources who briefed Johnson’s employer, the Daily Mail – would have taken place against the backdrop of a tit-for-tat row in March 2021 between the then prime minister and the EU, which was moving towards restricting exports of vaccines across the Channel.
An “enraged” Johnson asked security services to draw up “military options” to obtain “impounded” doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from a plant in Leiden after Britain had negotiated a deal with the company.
But while Britain’s security services were spared their biggest debacle on Dutch soil since Operation Market Garden, the claim has been widely reported on front pages in the Netherlands.
Elsewhere, Russian state media generated a po-faced report on the claims, interspersing clips of Johnson with footage of British special forces and overlaying them with a sinister backing track.
Johnson is expected to admit some fault when he is cross examined at the inquiry but will also seek to talk up the things that he believed he got right, ranging from the vaccines rollout to eventually opening up the economy.
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