Stanley Johnson said most of the population wouldn’t know how to spell Pinocchio

The Prime Minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, has been accused of snobbery and ‘contempt for the rest of the population’ after calling most of the public ‘illiterate’.

He made the comments today while appearing on the Victoria Derbyshire show, as he sought to defend his son Boris.

The prime minister has been accused of ‘lying’ and running scared after his refusal to attend debates and an interview with BBC journalist Andrew Neil.

Asked about Boris being called Pinocchio, Mr Johnson replies: ‘That requires a degree of literacy, which I think the great British public doesn’t necessarily have.’


When told that his remarks were quite ‘pejorative’, Mr Johnson replies: ‘They couldn’t spell Pinocchio if they tried’.



Pushed on why he would say such a thing, he asks ‘can you spell Pinocchio?’

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He goes on to express his shock and disbelief that the programme can read out a live Tweet from a viewer which calls the prime minister ‘a liar’.

Mr Johnson says: ‘I think it is utterly absurd and wrong that you can read out on air, a Tweet coming in from one of your readers, on air, which calls the prime minister a liar.

‘I think it’s amazing you can do that’.

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