Queen Elizabeth's guest ate dog biscuits

17 March 2022

One of Queen Elizabeth's lunch guests mistakenly ate her dogs' biscuits.

Queen Elizabeth's guest ate her dogs' biscuits

The 95-year-old monarch had held a meeting with then-Health Secretary Alan Johnson and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary at the time, in 2008 and invited the politicians to dine with her afterwards.

Her guests enjoyed their meal, but it wasn't until afterwards that Alan realised he had been "munching away" on treats that had been set out for the queen's beloved corgis.

Robert Hardman wrote in his new book 'Queen of Our Times': “The two Cabinet ministers left in high spirits. 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!’.

“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’.”

The Privy Council meeting had taken place the day after an inquest into the 1997 death of Princess Diana had returned a verdict of unlawful killing and Alan thought it was best to "steer well clear" from discussing the 94-day hearing into the tragedy, but was surprised when the queen was keen to have a "frank" discussion on the investigation, which had seen 278 witnesses called and ultimately decided chauffeur Henri Paul's "gross negligence" and the "speed and manner" of pursuing paparazzi had caused the crash which killed Diana and her partner Dodi Fayed.

He said in the book: “We talked about whatever was in the news, and 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, about how the thing had run and run and run...

“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.”