With the Conservative Party conference kicking off, it's meant to be Boris Johnson's time to shine, but instead, he's embroiled in another scandal - this time for allegedly inappropriately touching two women.
Charlotte Edwardes - a writer for The Sunday Times - wrote in her debut column on Monday (NZ Time) that British Prime Minister Johnson inappropriately touched her thigh during a meeting in what she believes was either the late-1990s or the early-2000s.
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She was a writer at the time for The Spectator, which from 1999 to 2005 was edited by Johnson. During a lunch meeting at the newspaper's headquarters, she says the pair were sitting at a table and he allegedly put his hand on her thigh and "[gave] it a squeeze".
"His hand is high up my leg and he has enough inner flesh beneath his fingers to make me sit suddenly upright," Edwardes wrote.
Edwardes claims she talked afterwards to another woman who had been sitting on the other side of Johnson. She allegedly told Edwardes that Johnson did the same thing to her.
Finishing her column, Edwardes writes: "The double thigh-squeezer is [now] Prime Minister."
The allegation has been strongly rejected by Downing St, with a spokesperson saying it was "untrue". Edwardes responded to that on Twitter, writing: "If the Prime Minister doesn't recollect the incident then clearly I have a better memory than he does".
The Guardian reports that Johnson is said to be furious with the claim, and it's been described within Downing St as "bollocks" and "nonsense".
But, responding to the allegations, Johnson's own Health Secretary Matt Hancock has told Channel 4 that he knows Edwardes "well" and "I entirely trust what she has to say".
"I know her and I know her to be trustworthy."
Amber Rudd - the former Work and Pensions Secretary who quit Johnson's cabinet over his Brexit strategy - tweeted that she agreed with Hancock.
Labour MP and spokesperson for Women and Equalities Dawn Butler tweeted it was a "shocking" but "familiar" story.
"What is it about powerful men feeling entitled to harass women? Boris Johnson has serious questions to answer," she tweeted.
The allegation comes only days after Johnson was referred to the police complaints body over his links to entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri. It's claimed that while Mayor of London, Johnson was having an affair with Arcuri and giving her favourable treatment - such as public money and access to foreign trips. Johnson denies he acted improperly.
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