BORIS JOHNSON has responded to a probe into his links to the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal with a foul-mouthed tirade.
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When a reporter raised allegations about the Tory London mayoral candidate’s dealings with disgraced press baron Rupert Murdoch, all Johnson could muster in his defence was:
“Stuff Donovan and his offensive f***ing b*****s!”
Tim Donovan is the BBC reporter who broke the story that Johnson was involved in business talks with the Murdoch empire soon after he told the London Assembly that the News International phone-hacking scandal was “codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party”.
“Boris Johnson was too cosy with Rupert Murdoch’s empire at a time when they were the subject of a police investigation and he used his office to undermine the Met’s work,” said a spokesperson for Labour’s mayor hopeful Ken Livingstone.
“He needs to publish all the email and other contact between him, News International and the Murdochs.”
Today, Johnson admitted he was after Murdoch’s money.
“I won’t make any secret of it; I have talked to all kinds of people,” he told LBC.
But those Murdoch emails remain secret.
Johnson is also under the cosh for ducking an interview with Donovan on Sunday when he sent his deputy into the TV studio on his behalf, citing a “long-standing personal engagement”.
Instead, it was discovered that Johnson was busy campaigning in south-west London at the time of the interview. The other main mayoral candidates had been grilled by Donovan in previous weeks.
Donovan won a journalism award following the 2008 mayoral election for his none-too-friendly reports on Livingstone’s campaign.
Johnson’s “b*****s” outburst is his second sweary-mayory effort of the campaign after he had called Livingstone a “f***ing liar”.
Watch the b*****s tirade here