Boris Johnson’s Mumsnet Interview Goes Viral After Brutal Opening Question

Boris Johnson was forced to defend himself from the very beginning of his interview with Mumsnet after a brutal opening question.Take a look below:

The interview has since gone viral after the Prime Minister appeared to be a little hesitant when described as a 'habitual liar' by one Mumsnet user, who had sent their question in for the Q&A.

"Of the many many hundreds of questions we got on Mumsnet, about half were on this subject," Mumsnet CEO said to kick off the interview.

"This is a pretty typical question that sums up the mood on Mumsnet... 'Why should we believe anything you say when it has been proven you are a habitual liar?'."

Johnson explained he didn't 'agree' with the 'premise of the question asked' but explained the best way he could answer was to urge the public to "look at what I get on with and deliver, and what I say I'm going to deliver."

Mumsnet

During the chat with Roberts, Johnson once again defended himself against Partygate criticism and said it would not be 'responsible' for him to quit amid the current challenges the country faces.

Roberts read out a statement from one Mumsnet user, who works as a teacher and explained they would lose their job if they broke the law, asking why the same shouldn't apply to the prime minister.

"I apologise very much for what happened," Johnson responded.

"But just to remind her of what I did and I think if people look at the event in question, it felt to me like a work event. I was there for a very short period of time, in the cabinet office, at my desk.

"I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN [fixed penalty notice] but of course I paid it.

"I'm still here because we've got huge pressure economically, we've got the biggest war in Europe for 80 years and we've got a massive agenda to deliver."

Discussing the important issue of lack of trust, Roberts asked Johnson how he could be an effective leader without the trust of the public.

Mumsnet

"A lot of our users would say if you've lost the trust of the people then you can't possibly be an effective prime minister?" she asked, to which Johnson responded: "Well I mean, let's see about that... I'm not going to deny the whole thing hasn't been a totally miserable experience for people in government and we've got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made."

The interview comes just a week after Sue Gray's long-awaited report on 'partygate' was finally made public.

While an interim version of Ms Gray's report was published at the start of the year, the full version goes further, looking at 16 events that could have broken restrictions.

You can read more on that here.