Boris Johnson, who doubles up as MP for Henley and Beano-speaking editor of the Spectator, experienced an uncomfortable few hours yesterday apologising to the people of Liverpool for an insensitive and insulting editorial which appears in the current edition of his magazine. He offered sincere apologies for using "outdated stereotypes" about Liverpudlians and acknowledged the hurt and dismay he had caused. Job done, he hopped on his bike and headed for the train back to Islington.
Boris is a bit of a card and, go on, you can't help loving him. But if he is truly sorry, then one has to ask why he continues to employ Taki, the playboy pundit, who sluices offensive and outdated stereotypes into the pages of the Spectator most weeks. After two girls were shot in Birmingham last year he referred to disaffected young people as "black thugs, sons of black thugs and grandsons of black thugs," adding bravely: "West Indians were allowed to immigrate after the war, multiply like flies and then the great state apparatus took over the care of their multiplications." Boris admitted this was a "terrible" column, but did not actually apologise. The party leader didn't suggest a penitential trip to Brixton.
In Taki's Spectator musings New York Puerto Ricans are spics - "a bunch of semi-savages ... fat, squat, ugly, dusky, dirty." Kenya is labelled "bongo-bongo land" and black men are periodically referred to as "Sambo". Taki is happy to describe himself as "a soi-disant anti-semite" and has gaily written of the world Jewish conspiracy.
It is interesting to speculate why Mr Johnson indulges these grisly ramblings week after week. Why did Lord Black, the former owner of the magazine, smile benignly on the little stream of poison? For how long will David and Frederick Barclay consider it waggish to pay for Taki's weekly bin-bag of outdated stereotypes. And why is it that Boris Johnson bends the knee before Merseyside, but has a non-PC schoolboy chuckle at stuff - equally vile - about people of colour (and what does Mr Howard make of it)? It couldn't be racism, by any chance?