London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

Oh, do give Boris Johnson a break. After all he’ll do for us, why shouldn’t he jet off to Mustique?

Oh, do give Boris Johnson a break. After all he’ll do for us, why shouldn’t he jet off to Mustique?

As he girds his loins for the road ahead, a little lotus eating is the ideal preparation
The day of his victory, the prime minister reached out to first-time Tories with the “incredible truth that we now speak as a One Nation Conservative party literally for everyone from Woking to Workington; from Kensington, I’m proud to say, to Clwyd South; from Surrey Heath to Sedgefield; from Wimbledon to Wolverhampton”.

From Bolsover, where Denis Skinner lost his seat, to Britannia Bay, where Johnson has reportedly arrived, on Mustique.

From Johnson’s vacant holiday home, Chequers, to – if we must sacrifice his stylish alliteration for dull, topographical precision – Villa Oceanus, overlooking Britannia Bay, as above. Since the villa is available to rent, literally for everyone, for £20,000 a week, we can, courtesy of its website, picture Mr Johnson poolside in his swimmers, reciting The Iliad to an enraptured host, Count Bismarck; outlining his “mission to work night and day” with the villa’s (four) attentive staff; discussing the environment with his girlfriend, the celebrated conservationist Carrie Symonds.

Although an online calculator suggests that the couple’s return trip – minus security – will generate emissions of around 16.5 tonnes of CO2, Johnsonian conservation, if Johnson senior is any guide, suggests that this unwelcome addition (the UK annual average, per capita, is around 5.5 tonnes), can be fully offset by profound personal indifference. Indeed, this trip may be the first real indication of Johnson’s meaning, when he promised, in his victory speech, “the most far-reaching environmental programme”. Who guessed it would extend to a tiny island in the Caribbean?

As for another pledge, to “rise to the challenge and to the level of expectations”, Johnson’s first holiday as PM must surely surpass all predictions. True, the alacrity with which he saved Zac – now Lord – Goldsmith from the will of the Richmond people confirmed suspicions about his undeviating flakiness, without being strictly unprecedented. The Blairs, alike in indifference to appearances, ennobled friends and crossed continents for tepid snorkelling. But: Mustique. If there is, on the planet, a more meretricious holiday destination, one with the same special flavour of historic slavery, touristic colonialism and untrammelled British snobbery, it remains undiscovered.

Mustique, as the captivating new memoir by Anne Glenconner, once lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, coincidentally reminds us, is where her mistress discovered “a whole new life” on land given by Lord Glenconner, then Colin Tennant, a man “utterly in awe of the Royal Family”. Tennant, who was prone to private sadism and public tantrums (including biting), bought the struggling plantation island in 1958, then reinvented it as a swank housing estate.

Shortly, the isle would be full of massive villas, noises and raucous parties, which gave delight and, at least to classy residents such as Princess Margaret, and her young boyfriend Roddy Llewellyn, hurt not. One of her beach parties, Glenconner recalls, featured that most royal of contrivances, “a roll-top bath full of champagne”.

At Tennant’s 60th, an event two years in the planning, “Colin had thought of every detail, even the clothes: we had gone to India twice to choose the outfits. There were T-shirts made to mark the occasion and Indian clothes for the parties, which were laid out for guests…” And maybe posterity will also be more respectful to the Philip Greens.

Mustique’s Caliban and Prospero, the princess and the property developer, thrived in a crudely hedonistic yet otherwise conventional system whereby the “villagers”, as the Tennants called tenants, featured largely as help or, occasionally, accessories. “Colin got some of the local lads oiled up and they wore nothing at all except a gold-painted coconut strategically placed down below,” Glenconner writes. “That night made Mustique famous for ever, mainly down to the golden boys dancing around Princess Margaret. Even for the mid-70s, the scenes were an unusual sight.” The parties, her husband said, “made Mustique famous and therefore more profitable”.

The anonymous islanders, possessing for some reason no “smart clothes”, were costumed in crinolines, striped trousers and top hats for the Queen’s arrival on Britannia in 1977. An earlier Britannia visit had been commemorated by Tennant renaming, in the tradition of all thorough colonisers, the bay now welcoming Johnson. In fact, it doesn’t seem impossible that a new Carrie Inlet or Johnson Promontory won’t join Britannia Bay, after a visit that promises to do as much for Mustique’s profits as Tennant’s grotesque parties. “Still today, it attracts the same sort of people as it did all those years ago,” Glenconner confirms, “from the Royal Family to the social elite.” And as of now, one-nation shaggers.

As little as any reasonable person expected Johnson, once world king, to become something beyond the sum of his appetites and entitlement, there was a chance of performed responsibility, or concealment, such as to increase his party’s long-term chances of re-election (that is, in a future not featuring Rebecca Long Bailey). If you didn’t expect, for a second, to find the career sleazebag hunkered in the Scilly Isles or posing with walking poles, it was possible Johnson might submit, Cameron-style, to occasional short-haul flights to chilly sea, even to economy seats, before holing up in some secret hell containing the sort of people he likes: Lebedevs, Bismarcks, much younger women with blond hair.

Instead, Mustique. An island routinely promoted with tributes such as “the world’s most glamorous island”. As we learn from Lady Glenconner, this hardly does justice to its Tennant-fantasy heritage. There are other resorts fetishising wealth and privacy. “The Queen’s visits cemented,” Glenconner writes, “the idea that Mustique was also a playground for the aristocracy, which was probably, on balance, nearer to the truth, simply because most of the party guests were members of my or Colin’s family, far outweighing the rock stars.”

Hence, perhaps, Mustique’s irresistible allure for Johnson and Symonds: the new, one-nation-conservationist iteration of Margaret and Roddy.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×