BORIS Johnson has been challenged by a mother who accused him of fuelling the social “stigma” against children of single parents during his time as a journalist.
A woman known only as Ruth from Oldham accosted the PM during an LBC phone-in yesterday, bringing him to task over remarks he made about single mothers in an article for the Spectator magazine in 1995.
A piece for the right-leaning magazine has been brought to light this week in which Johnson described the children of single mothers as “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate”.
In the column, the Prime Minister said it was “outrageous” married couples “should pay for the single mothers’ desire to procreate independently of men”.
Radio caller Ruth told the PM that in the year he wrote the column, she had “just spent 15 years raising two children on my own”.
She said: “They were not ill-raised, ignorant and aggressive. One of them is a headmaster in a special-needs school and the other is a sales director for an American software company.
“My children suffered the stigma attached from the comments made by Mr Johnson at the time.”
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Johnson argued his words had been “lifted out of context” and he meant “no disrespect”.
The PM said: “Ruth I want to say to you, I mean absolutely no disrespect to you or anybody.
“These are 25-year-old quotations culled from articles written, I think, before I was even in politics.”
The former mayor of London was also quizzed on his views on single mothers by journalists at a press conference in Westminster later yesterday.
He replied: “There are millions of words that I have written and you’ll find everybody is able to find some they can cull from the text and twist and distort them in whatever way they choose.”
During the LBC phone-in, Johnson was asked by presenter Nick Ferrari how many children he has fathered and he declined to answer.
Johnson has a child, born in 2009, as a result of an affair with art advisory Helen Macintyre.
At first, he denied paternity and even sought an injunction in 2013 to prevent her existence being discovered during a court battle.
The 55-year-old, who also has four children with his estranged wife Marina Wheeler, said he would not be discussing his children during the campaign.
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