Johnson’s print rants reveal his prejudices

BORIS Johnson suggested the UK should still be “in charge” of Africa, claimed northern homes were “infested with drug dealers” and branded the poorest families “chavs, losers and burglars”.

The PM’s past as a journalist continues to haunt him as he battles to persuade traditional Labour voters to back him over Brexit.

In a 2005 column for the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson wrote that poorer voters who live on “run-down estates” only continued to vote for Labour due to the “deluded hope of bigger hand-outs”.

He said the “bottom” one-fifth of British citizens “supplies us with the chavs, the losers, the burglars, the drug addicts”.

And a 2002 article by

Mr Johnson in the Spectator said of Africa: “The problem is not that we were once in charge but that we are not in charge any more.”

Confronted yesterday on the BBC, he squirmed: “People are always going to drag out bits and pieces I have written over the years in order to distract from the fundamental issue at this election.”

But Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said: “This is someone who, from Eton to the Bullingdon Club and beyond, has known nothing but privilege and entitlement.

“Johnson started his career attacking working class communities like mine in newspaper columns, and then joined a Conservative government that attacked our pay, homes, schools and hospitals.

“He has no idea what life is like for people who don’t have everything handed to them on a plate – and he doesn’t care.”