Following yesterday’s story on Boris’s mysterious wristwatch – set 12 minutes ahead of the clock behind him – all kinds of theories circulated online attempting to explain it. “Was Boris late?” “Was the clock photoshopped?” “Did a SpAd wind back the clock…?”

One Twitter user appears to have found the answer: Boris does in fact set his watch ahead by about 12 minutes, presumably to stop himself being late. Digging into the back end EXIF meta-data (the standard that specifies the formats for images used by digital cameras) from the Downing Street Flickr account reveals an exact timestamp for each photo, taken from the camera itself. Comparing that timestamp to the face of Boris’s watch across several photos consistently shows that the watch is 12 minutes ahead of the meta-data.

Guido’s scanned through photos going back to at least June, and the result is the same: the watch is 12 minutes fast.

Mrs Fawkes uses the same trick with the kitchen clock to get the kids to school on time…