Boris Johnson and the Lebedevs: how I exposed the prime minister’s defining scandal

Boris Johnson, then mayor of London, with his sister Rachel and Evening Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev at a party in 2012. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images

In many ways, summer in London in July 2019 was not unlike summer in London in July 2022. The weather was warm, the sun shone and a Tory party leadership battle was under way.

It was the beginning of an era, not the end – on 24 July 2019, Boris Johnson walked into 10 Downing Street after being elected prime minister of the United Kingdom. But the seeds of a scandal that is beginning to seem as if it could – and should – become the defining legacy of his premiership had already been sown. Because the latest Johnson scandal to catch fire is of another order to Wallpapergate or Partygate or the one that finally forced him from office, his lies about disgraced MP, Chris Pincher.