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PM favourite Boris Johnson faces shocking claims that he insulted families of 7/7 bombing victims in a four-letter rant.

The alleged outburst came when he was Mayor of London and being briefed about the cost of inquests into the 2005 terror attacks which killed 52.

Brian Coleman , who was chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, claims Mr Johnson erupted in fury and said: “F*** the families! F*** the families!”

And a second source told the Sunday Mirror that he was certain Boris used the offensive words.

But another source, at the meeting, disputed Mr Coleman’s account.

(Image: Reuters) (Image: Daily Mirror)

And there was no comment from the Tory leadership favourite when asked if he would apologise for his alleged comments.

Mr Coleman, 57, told how he was briefing the Mayor in London’s City Hall in 2011 about the cost of the inquests.

He said: “I was telling Boris how the Fire Authority was having to spend a sizeable sum on lawyers, as were the Metropolitan Police, Transport for London and everybody else involved.

Boris suddenly said, ‘I blame Tony Blair for all this. He started it with the Marchioness’.”

That, claims Mr Coleman, referred to inquests into the deaths of 51 partygoers after the 1989 Thames collision between the Marchioness pleasure steamer and the dredger Bowbelle.

At the briefing, Mr Coleman said Guto Harri, the Mayor’s communications chief at the time, explained the 7/7 inquests were for the benefit of the families.

Mr Coleman added: “To which Boris replied, ‘F*** the families! F*** the families!’

(Image: PA)

“I was having none of this and snapped at Boris, ‘You didn’t have to write eight letters of condolence to families of your constituents or attend the funeral of 31-year-old Lee Baisden (a Fire Authority employee) who had been blown to pieces at Aldgate and comfort his poor widowed mother.”

Yesterday Mr Harri said of Mr Johnson’s alleged remark: “I didn’t hear him say it.

“It’s not the kind of thing he would say so I think it’s extremely unlikely.”

And the ex-communications boss has a different recollection of a subsequent conversation with Mr Coleman.

Mr Harri said: “Brian’s own account acknowledges I told him at the time that I think he was mistaken.”

But Mr Johnson, 54, is no stranger to causing outrage with his colourful language.

A year ago, he reportedly told a diplomatic gathering, in response to business concerns about Brexit : “F*** business!”

Earlier this year he criticised police spending on historic child sexual abuse investigations, saying that the money had been “ spaffed up a wall ”.

(Image: Reuters)

And in 2013 he criticised the inquiry into the Met Police investigation of Stephen Lawrence ’s murder, complaining “there has been a whiff of the witch-hunt”.

The current row surrounds a blog written by Mr Coleman and emerges weeks before the 14th anniversary of 7/7.

Images still haunt survivors and families of the 52 who died.

One, epitomising London’s spirit in the face of adversity, showed Davinia Douglass, 38, being led away in a burns mask.

Mr Coleman, a former mayor of London’s Barnet borough, was a Tory London Assembly member and chair of the Fire Authority for four of the eight years that Mr Johnson was Mayor.

But Mr Coleman also has a controversial and colourful past.

After being convicted of assault on a café owner in October 2012 he was expelled from the Conservative Party.

In May 2014 Mr Coleman stood in local elections as an independent candidate but failed to be elected.

His blog – under the title The King of Bling is back – was written after he learned ex-Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson was running for No10.

(Image: PA)

He told the Sunday Mirror: “I stand by this story. I was so angry with Boris at that meeting. Boris is not suitable to be PM, for crying out loud, and that’s why I wrote this blogpost.

“I’ve never written it down before but people need to know about this. That’s my only agenda.”

In his blog he added: “I know Boris. I worked with Boris. I was the first Member of the London Assembly to endorse Boris’s candidature for the London mayoralty.

“I last spoke to him a year ago at a party he threw at No1 Carlton Gardens, the official residence of the Foreign Secretary, to mark 10 years since he was elected Mayor of London.

“Boris was a poor judge of character. I lost count of the ‘deputy mayors’ and senior aides who passed through City Hall.

"These inexperienced advisers are no doubt partly, along with Boris’s ego, the reason for so many failed and pointless projects – Boris Island, the East London Cable Car, the Garden Bridge.”

(Image: PA)

As chairman of the fire authority Mr Coleman says he had control of 6,000 staff and a £330million budget and would meet Boris every week.

But he wrote: “Boris just simply never read the briefs or prepared for his speeches.

“At one Lord Mayor of London’s London Government Dinner he could be seen scribbling notes on the napkin during the meat course.

“At a Board of Deputies annual dinner I had actually sent him a three-point brief for his speech which was thank the Community for their support in your election, express your admiration for the State of Israel and, finally, support the roll-out of Jewish Community Schools in London.

“Instead he made a speech about buses to a room full of the great and the good of the Jewish community, who rarely use them.”