Boris Johnson’s other woman

There are few stranger relationships in Westminster than the close alliance of Boris Johnson and the campaigner, author, and self-described ‘Chief Fanny defender’ Nimco Ali. According to Ali, she first met Boris Johnson in Putney eight years ago when they bumped into each other on the high street, as she was campaigning about FGM. She asked him for a meeting and the rest, as they say, is history. The pair went on to take part in several anti-FGM campaigns and, as Ali put it: ‘he and his team at City Hall went on to work with me over several years.’ Johnson and Ali seem to have become particularly close since he officially declared that he was running to become the next leader of the Conservative party. Shortly after his Telegraph column on women in burqas looking like ‘letterboxes’ was dredged up, Nimco Ali re-emerged as Boris’ staunchest defender, writing a piece in the same paper describing him as ‘not just a feminist, but a real champion of women’s rights.