Why does Boris Johnson always wear a Grimsby Town hat?

Former prime minister Boris Johnson has scuttled off from giving evidence at the UK Covid inquiry.

Crowds of bereaved family members shouted at the former prime minister as he left the building in west London on Wednesday evening.

The word “liar” could be heard among the jeers as he entered an awaiting vehicle.

While the disgraced and much-maligned PM tried his best to keep his head and no doubt shut out the jeers he was receiving there was an odd detail to his hurried exit from the inquiry: a Grimsby Town FC bobbly hat.

Now, Johnson, who was born in New York City and spent much of his early life between the United States and the UK, mostly in North London, does not have an obvious connection to the seaside Lincolnshire town, famous for its fishing, nor its football club.

However, Johnson has been seen wearing the hat on numerous occasions for several years now, sporting it on his various jaunts around London, during his time as PM in Downing Street and even in the Scottish Highlands.

Does Johnson have a unique affection for the current League Two side, nicknamed the Mariners, or their ground Blundell Park? It would seem no and there is no real origin story behind the hat either.

When asked about his fondness for the hat by Grimsby Live in 2022, Johnson said: "It’s what I grab when I run out the house. There’s no particular science to it."

He added: "It’s a very good hat. It’s lovely and warm. What I like most is that it comes down and covers my ears."

Johnson did ask when would be "strategically advantageous" to wear the hat to give Grimsby some luck but that good fortune has been few and far between for the club as of late.

Politically Grimsby had been a Labour stronghold since the 1940s but switched to the Tories in the 2019 general election. It strongly voted to leave the EU in 2016, with more than 69 per cent of voters backing Brexit.

Football-wiseGrimsby currently sits in 20th place in League Two having won just four games all season and were recently knocked out of the FA Cup by Oxford United.

Things didn't go particularly well for Johnson at the inquiry on Wednesday either who stumbled over his words when asked about 5000 missing WhatsApp messages and that mad cow disease had made him sceptical about the dangers of Covid as it "wasn’t nearly as fatal as people had originally believed”.

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.