Boris Johnson defended those who opposed gay people joining the military and the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet being arrested, in the latest controversial comments unearthed from his time as a journalist.

In articles written when he was in his mid-30s, the prime minister also wrote that the police had been cowed by the Macpherson report – which found that the Metropolitan police were institutionally racist – and claimed that officers were too busy on “racial awareness programmes” to respond to crime reports.

Johnson has been repeatedly criticised for statements he made during his career as a columnist, writer and editor, including referring to black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and arguing that Islam has caused the Muslim world to be “literally centuries behind” the west.

Last week he was condemned by the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner – who had her first baby at 16 – for once writing that single mothers were to blame for “producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children”.

“I might be the shadow education secretary, but inside I’m that 16-year-old that didn’t think I was worth anything,” Rayner said. “And people like him make women who are already vulnerable feel that they’re the problem. They’re not the problem.” Read more

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