An old video of Boris Johnson outside his house has been revived with a claim that the Prime Minister of United Kingdom is welcoming journalists with tea after battling COVID-19. BOOM found that the video is from 2018, before Johnson was diagnosed positive for COVID-19 and before he was elected as the PM and moved into his current Downing Street residence.
Johnson was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 27, 2020 and was discharged on April 12 having recovered from the disease
The video is being shared with a viral message, that describes Johnson to be in an unkempt state and also places focus on his house calling it, "just like ordinary people living in a small lane"
The viral caption with the video is, "Some reporters visited the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson who had recovered from his illness. His home is like the old abandoned military hut with very old red brick walls. The road is narrow and there is no tile, just like ordinary people living in a small lane. The living room was too small, so he had to hold the tea tray and entertain the reporters outdoors.All the tea cups are of different kind. He met them with disheveled hair, casual clothes but with a confident smile of a Prime Minister."
BOOM received the message on its helpline (7700906111).
Fact Check
A search for 'Boris Johnson serving tea to reporters' on YouTube showed several results 2018, when several journalists had visisted Johnson's house in Oxfordshire.
A video uploaded on August 13, 2018 on The Telegraph's official YouTube channel showed the same scene as in the viral video. According to reports, Journalists had gone to Boris Johnson's house in Oxfordshire for a comment after his comparison of Muslim women wearing burqas with letter boxes and bank robbers in a newspaper column was criticised throughout the country.
Johnson who was then a Member of Parliament, came out of his house with a dishevelled look and offered the reporters some tea, instead of answering the questions about his comment.
This is the video of the incident:
Below is the screenshot comparison of the video shared in the misleading post (L) and the original video from 2018 (R).
Johnson who was elected the PM of United Kingdom in July 2019, soon moved into his official residence at 10 Downing Street. As seen from the photo of 10 Downing Street below, it does not have old red brick walls and a narrow road as claimed in the misleading post.
As of May 2, 2020, there have been more than 177,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the UK with more than 27,000 deaths. Johnson's government was criticised for propagating herd immunity to combat COVID-19 even though no vaccines have been developed for the coronavirus.
The UK implemented a national lockdown on March 23 which was extended for three more weeks on April 16. On April 27, 2020 Johnson, in his first address since beating COVID-19, said that the UK is past the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak.