But others may reflect on Johnson’s record of writing in derogatory terms about groups other than politicians without necessarily “putting yourself in the place of the person you’re criticising”.
In a 2018 column for the Daily Telegraph,
he wrote that women who wore burkas were choosing “to go around looking like letter boxes” or “a bank robber”. In a 2002 column for the same newspaper, he described black people as “piccaninnies” and referred to “watermelon smiles”, language for which
he later apologised but claimed had been taken out of context. In a 1998 column, again for the Telegraph,
he used the phrase “tank-topped bumboys” to describe gay men.
By the time he finally gave up the column when he became foreign secretary,
Johnson was paid £275,000 a year, about £4.80 a word.
As well as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, he was a Brussels reporter for the same newspaper and editor of the Spectator. As a reporter he had a reputation for filing exaggerated, if colourful, stories and was famously fired from his first job at the Times after making up a quote and attributing it to his godfather.
Since changing professions, the prime minister is said to have sometimes taken umbrage when facing negative press himself. The columnist and former newspaper editor Sir Max Hastings
wrote in 2019: “I have handwritten notes from our possible next prime minister, threatening dire consequences in print if I continued to criticise him.”
www.theguardian.com
he's trying to spin it that he was asking challenging questions to those in power:
