Royal Navy: President Joe Biden didn't board HMS Prince of Wales due to "too many steps", Boris Johnson claims
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President of the United States Joe Biden declined to board a Royal Navy aircraft carrier due to there being “too many steps”, a former prime minister has claimed.
Boris Johnson said the president decided against attending a tour of HMS Prince of Wales, with the vessel being too large. The Daily Telegraph reports the former Conservative prime minister, who resigned after several scandals including lockdown parties during the Covid-19 pandemic and the investigation into the behaviour of former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, made the claim in his upcoming autobiography “Unleashed”.
Mr Johnson also claims Mr Biden took “a bit of a shine” to his wife during his visit to the UK in 2021. The pair met before the 47th G7 summit in Cornwall in June 2021, where the 65,000 tonne aircraft carrier was “proudly stationed” ahead of the event. Mr Johnson said questions were raised about whether Mr Biden was “really as elderly-seeming as his detractors sometimes said”.
He wrote: ”His staff told us that he would not in fact be boarding our vast aircraft carrier — which we had proudly stationed in the bay — because it had so many steps; and we wondered what that meant about his physical fitness.” Mr Biden attended the ceremony with his wife Jill. Mr Johnson said the president remarked that both he and the prime minister had married above ourselves”, before asking if he and Carrie, then aged 33, could take a secluded walk on the beach.
The excerpt read: “‘Why don’t you and I go down to the beach,’ he said to Carrie a bit later, while Jill Biden rolled her eyes, ‘and leave this guy here?’” HMS Prince of Wales is currently on deployment, due to take part in Exercise Strike Warrior in the North Sea. She is preparing to take charge of a UK Carrier Strike Group in the Indo-Pacific region next year.