BORIS Johnson employed a series of deflection tactics and repeatedly dodged questions on key issues during a testy BBC interview.

The Tory leadership hopeful last night faced a series of questions from Andrew Neil on issues such as the resignation of UK ambassador Kim Darroch, the incarceration in an Iranian jail of British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and his previous comments about Donald Trump.

Johnson faced heat from Neil about his failure to back Darroch in a live ITV interview on Tuesday. The ambassador resigned on Thursday, with many believing Johnson’s failure to back him forced his hand.

“I stood up for the principle that all civil servants should be able to say what they want to their political masters,” said Johnson when asked why he failed to back Darroch. He added that his views had been “misrepresented” and eventually accepted they were partly responsible for Darroch’s resignation.

The former London mayor also said that it wasn’t right for the ambassador’s career was put into the public domain the way it was and used as a “political football”.

“You didn’t have anything critical to say about Trump,” said Neil, to which Johnson responded: “I have said plenty critical things [of Trump] in the past. I have been very forthright with the United States of America and I will continue to be.”

Last night, UK police launched a criminal investigation into the leaked emails in which Darroch called Trump, among other things, “inept”.

Johnson was then asked, and repeatedly failed to answer, if he still believed that Trump was stupid and unfit for office.

Then, when attention turned to Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British national who was detained in Iran for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, true to form, Johnson failed to answer a straight question with a straight answer.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose British husband has campaigned for her release since she was imprisoned in April 2016, saw her sentence increased when Johnson erroneously said she was in the country to teach journalism.

“Why did you say she was teaching journalism in Iran?” asked Neil.

“I have already said it was a mistake,” replied Johnson. “What I meant to say was [journalism] was the most they could accuse her of,” he continued.

Denying that he made a bad situation, he added: “You are trying to blame me for her incarceration.”

Johnson was asked if he had failed to master his brief on that occasion and it was put to him he’d been sloppy. Predictably, the favourite to replace Theresa May in 10 Downing Street failed to answer.

The Tory MP also repeated his pledge to leave the EU on October 31 come what may: “I think we’ve got to come out on October 31 and I think it is very odd that those who are saying they would delay even further can’t set another date.

“How much further are we going to wait? We were meant to come out on March 29. We then were going to come out April 8. We then delayed it for a further six months. I think this is leading to a huge erosion of trust in politics.”

Then, in an astonishing lack of knowledge on how international trade rules work, he admitted he did not know what paragraph 5C of Gatt 24 – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade – said: “There’s enough in paragraph 5B to get us the agreement that we want.”

Earlier, in a separate interview with Neil, Johnson’s rival Jeremy Hunt repeated his vow to slash corporation tax to 12%, referencing Trump’s similar cut in the US.

Neil challenged the Foreign Secretary on this, saying the cut was part of a larger package of measures.

Hunt reiterated his plan to ignore the Scottish Government in any further Brexit talks, repeating his pledge to put forward a negotiating team consisting of the DUP, the European Research Group, as well as Scottish and Welsh Conservatives.