Boris puts a brave face on TV grilling

In the interview with Mair on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, a clearly uncomfortable Mr Johnson was forced to deny being a “nasty piece of work’’ and refused to discuss allegations about his private life.

Speaking in London yesterday, Mr Johnson said: “Eddie Mair did a splendid job.

“There is no doubt that is what the BBC is for – holding us to account.

“I fully concede it wasn’t my most blistering performance, but that was basically because I was set to talk about the Olympics and housing in London and he wanted to talk about other things, some of them – my private life and so on – of quite some antiquity, the details of which I wasn’t brilliant on.

“He was perfectly within his rights to have a bash at me – in fact it would have been shocking if he hadn’t. If a BBC presenter can’t attack a nasty Tory politician what’s the world coming to?”

But his father, Stanley Johnson, launched a robust attack on the BBC over the “bike-crash” interview.

He said he “felt great anger” towards Mair, who was standing in as presenter on the show 
and claimed his son had been abused.

“I thought Eddie Mair’s interview was about the most disgusting piece of journalism I’ve listened to for a very long time,” he told Nick Ferrari on LBC.

“The BBC sank about as low as it could. If grilling people about their private lives, accusing them of guilt by association and openly abusing them is a legitimate interview, then frankly, I don’t know where we are coming.”

During the broadcast the mayor was pressed over whether he lied to Tory leader Michael Howard about allegations of an affair in 2004 – which resulted in his resignation as shadow arts Minister – as well as claims that he was sacked from The Times more than two decades ago for making up a quote.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “We believe this was a fair interview which took in issues facing London and the wider political landscape... Eddie’s line of questioning attempted to elicit responses to direct questions that were not being answered”