PM tells pupils of guilt as a journalist

BORIS Johnson has suggested journalists are “always abusing people”, as he said he left the profession because he felt “a bit guilty” over the criticism he doled out.

The Prime Minister, who has long been criticised for using highly offensive language in newspaper columns, told schoolchildren yesterday about reconsidering his career when a “light bulb went off in my mind”.

He told pupils at Sedgehill Academy in Lewisham, south-east London, of his career as a journalist, during which he was the editor of the influential conservative magazine The Spectator and covered the

European Union as the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent.

“But when you’re a journalist – it’s a great, great job, it’s a great profession – but the trouble is that you sometimes find yourself always abusing people or attacking people,” he said.

“Not that you want to abuse them or attack them, but being critical when maybe you feel sometimes a bit guilty about that because you haven’t put yourself in the place of the person you’re criticising.”

Shadow media minister Chris Matheson urged the Prime Minister to apologise and withdraw the remarks, highlighting they came after equalities minister Kemi Badenoch launched an online tirade against a reporter.

“For Boris Johnson to say journalists are ‘always abusing people’ probably says more about his own career,” the Labour MP said.

“It is particularly troubling coming so soon after the Prime Minister stood by one of his ministers who attacked a journalist who was just trying to do her job.”

Mr Johnson has previously used journalism to deploy racial slurs such as “piccaninnies” in describing then-prime minister Tony Blair being met by “tribal warriors” with “watermelon smiles” on a trip to the Congo.