The former health secretary Alan Johnson unwittingly ate dog biscuits meant for the Queen’s corgis as he sat next to the monarch during a lunch at Windsor castle in 2008, a new book has revealed. After the meal, Johnson who was also a former Labour home secretary, remarked that he had “particularly enjoyed the cheese and the unusual dark biscuits” laid on by the Queen, according to her latest biographer, Robert Hardman. It was left to his cabinet colleague and fellow royal lunch guest, Paul Murphy, the then Welsh secretary, to reveal to Johnson the truth about what he had eaten. Hardman writes: “Paul said: ‘No, the dark biscuits were for the corgis!’ At that point – to Alan Johnson’s eternal amusement – it 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’.” Both ministers had attended a privy council meeting before being invited to stay for lunch by the Queen, according to Hardman’s book Queen of Our Times. Johnson and Murphy dined either side of the Queen during the meal.
Johnson told Hardman how relaxed the Queen had been during the lunch. The book says: “The informality continued right to the end, as the Queen chatted and fed snacks to her corgis at the same time.” The lunch took place after the verdict of the long-running inquest into the death of Princess Diana, which found she had been unlawfully killed by a combination of the driving by her chauffeur and the vehicles pursuing her, but said there was no evidence of an establishment conspiracy. The ministers decided they would avoid talking about Diana, but the Queen raised it during the lunch, according to Hardman’s book. Johnson told him: “The dominant news was about Diana. Paul and I thought we’d better keep off the subject. But the Queen talked about it in the most frank way.” Hardman also quotes Johnson saying: “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.” As a privy counsellor, he said he could not disclose details of the conversation.