Seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
Yesterday, Boris Johnson sent his father Stanley to Channel 4 to try to represent him in a party leaders’ debate.
Today Johnson Senior appeared on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme to defend his son, who has suffered a ‘car-crash’ week of exposed dishonesty, shiftiness, arrogance and snobbery, as well as being challenged by nurses over his shoddy election promises.
But Johnson Sr immediately found himself at the centre of controversy after insulting the literacy and intelligence of the UK public.
When a viewer tweeted calling Boris Johnson ‘Pinocchio’ – a reference to his dishonesty – Stanley Johnson launched into a verbal assault on the brains and writing ability of UK citizens:
“That requires a degree of literacy, which I think the great British public doesn’t necessarily have” was bad enough – but when pressed Johnson admitted that he didn’t think the public could “spell ‘Pinocchio’ if they tried”.
And when the presenter told him that was a pejorative thing to say, Johnson appeared to find that amusing.
Johnson S rounded off the interview by saying that he was amazed that anyone was allowed to call ‘the Prime Minister’ a liar on social media – it didn’t seem to occur to him to say how terrible it is that ‘the Prime Minister’ is one.
It seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – and Boris Johnson’s old man is just as prone to arrogant comments and car-crash interviews as his cowardly son.
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