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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Rosaleen Fenton

Boris Johnson’s worst quotes - from slamming single mums to Partygate apology

Boris Johnson has left the building - with No 10 Downing Street ready for its new inhabitant, Liz Truss. The former PM has had a chequered political career so far - astonishingly making it as far as Downing Street, despite his questionable leadership skills.

Now he is on to pastures new - as while he remains an MP, he's likely to be less busy now he's not responsible for running the country. Perhaps he will look to America and attempt to build a media career over there, or he may devote his time to charity. Whatever it is, it will require great diplomatic skill.

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak at a gathering on the PM's birthday (PA)

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So bearing that in mind, we thought it was time to recall some of the occasions that Boris left many of us questioning just how he became a politician.

On politicians who don't quit when the time is right

"'When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons – I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate.'"

Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a gathering in 10 Downing Street during lockdown (PA)

During the pandemic

"I was at the hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands.”

On Downing Street lockdown party breaches

"Nobody told me that what we were doing was against the rules, that the event in question was something that… was not a work event, and as I said in the House of Commons when I went out into that garden I thought that I was attending a work event.”

Boris on his £250,000 column for the Telegraph

"It's chicken feed. I don't see why I shouldn't knock off an article... if someone wants to pay me, then that's their lookout."

Women glistening like otters

During the London Olympics in 2012, when he was serving mayor of London, he wrote: "There are semi-naked women playing beach volleyball in the middle of the Horse Guards Parade immortalised by Canaletto.

"They are glistening like wet otters and the water is plashing off the brims of the spectators' sou'westers. The whole thing is magnificent and bonkers."

Great Britain players celebrate winning the fourth set on Day 3 of the London 2012 Olympic Games (Getty Images)

Describing Portsmouth

“Here we are in one of the most depressed downs in southern England, a place that is arguably too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs.”

Calling the people of Papua New Guinea cannibals

Writing in his Telegraph column in September 2006 he criticised internal rows in the Labour Party and in doing so offended the people of Papua New Guinea by calling them cannibals.

He wrote: "For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour party.”

Apologising for any offence caused, he jokily said that he would "add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology”.

Single mums

Boris Johnson branded the children of single mothers "ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate" in a magazine column.

In the 1995 piece in The Spectator, he said it was "outrageous" that married couples should fund "'the single mothers' desire to procreate independently of men.”

Boris Johnson has some spare time on his hands (Getty Images)

He said "I blame the male sex for the appalling proliferation of single mothers", which "is producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children".

After saying working class men are "likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless", he added: "If he is white collar, he is likely to be little better.

"It is no use blaming uppity and irresponsible women for becoming pregnant in the absence of a husband.

"Given their natural desire to have babies, and the tininess of what the sociologist William Julius Wilson has called the 'marriageable pool', it is the only answer."

On FGM

Following a visit to Uganda, Johnson recounted his visit in 2002 for the Spectator.

He said: "Almost every dollar of Western aid seems tied to some programme of female emancipation — stamping out clitorectomy, polygamy, bride-price, or whatever. And while some readers may feel vaguely that the African male should not be stampeded into abandoning his ancient prerogatives, one cannot doubt the care — bordering on obsession — with which Western workers pursue their ends.”

Describing Liverpool in a Spectator editorial

"They ... see themselves, whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status, yet at the same time they wallow in it.

"Part of this flawed psychological state is that they cannot accept that they might have made any contribution to their misfortunes, but seek rather to blame someone else for it, thereby deepening their sense of shared tribal grievance against the rest of society."

He was then sent on an apology tour to the city by then Tory leader Michael Howard.

Piccaninnies

In a column published in the Daily Telegraph in 2002, Mr Johnson mocked the then Prime Minister Tony Blair 's trip to the Congo: "What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies," he wrote. It also mentioned "watermelon smiles".

The comments were raised during Johnson's London Mayoral election, where he said he "loathed and despised" racism and said his word had been taken out of context.

Writing about LGBT education in the Spectator

"Labour’s appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it”

Spectator editorship

Mr Johnson has also been criticised for articles published while he was editor of the right wing Spectator magazine.

In one, columnist Taki wrote that "Orientals ... have larger brains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the other pole." In another, he described black American basketball players as having "arms hanging below their knees and tongues sticking out".

In a 2008 climb down he said: "I am sorry for what was previously written as it does not reflect what is in my heart."

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