Former Labour Health Secretary Alan Johnson has confessed to unwittingly eating dog biscuits intended for the Queen’s corgis.
The ex-Cabinet minister said the accident happened the day after the verdict of the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Mr Johnson said he was clueless to the fact he was munching on the dog food during the lunch with Her Majesty until he left with the then Welsh Secretary, Paul Murphy.
The revelation came in a new book called “The Queen of Our Times" by Robert Hardman, where the amusing exchange that followed between the two Cabinet ministers was described.
It reads: “We were waiting for our cars and Paul said, ‘What a wonderful meal’. I said, ‘I loved it. I loved every minute of it.’
“As they discussed the food, Johnson mentioned that he had particularly enjoyed the cheese and the unusual dark biscuits. Paul said, ‘No, the dark biscuits were for the corgis!’
Queen Elizabeth II with some of her corgis
PA
Queen Elizabeth II sitting with her corgis
PA
“At that point – to Alan Johnson’s eternal amusement – it suddenly dawned on him that he had been munching away on dog snacks. ‘I don’t think I’d had cheese with a Bonio biscuit before’.”
According to the biography, both ministers were invited to lunch by Her Majesty after having attended a privy council meeting.
They’d made a plan to avoid any conversation about Diana, but the Queen brought up in what Mr Johnson described in “the most frank way".
Mr Johnson continues in the book: “At lunch, we had a whale of a time. She was good company. It was as if you’d known her for years. Obviously, there were the caveats that you understood – you don’t put your arm on her shoulder and say, ‘Let me tell you ... ’ and so on.”