British Prime Minister Boris Johnson turned to an unnamed scholar to help with the writing of his biography of William Shakespeare, a project Johnson had committed to before his election in 2019. As reported in The Guardian, Johnson offered to pay the biographer, referred to as “one of the UK’s most eminent Shakespeare scholars,” to answer questions Johnson posed, which he would record. Johnson used a similar practice while writing his biography of Winston Churchill. The scholar turned down the offer, fearing Johnson wanted to “enlist Shakespeare as a Tory nationalist.” Before the revelation about Johnson’s request for editorial aid, the prime minister’s office denied the claim from his former aide, Dominic Cummings, that Johnson missed important meetings relating to the COVID-19 crisis to work on the Shakespeare biography. The book was originally scheduled to be released in 2016, and then in 2020, but its publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, does not have plans at present to publish it in the foreseeable future.