PM won’t apologise for Jimmy Savile slur against Keir Starmer
Boris Johnson will not apologise to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer after the Labour leader was mobbed by angry protesters shouting out “Jimmy Savile” and holding nooses.
It came after Johnson claimed last week that Starmer spent his time as the director of public prosecutions “not prosecuting Jimmy Savile”, despite the fact that the Labour leader had no say in the 2009 decision to not charge the notorious paedophile.
Starmer was bundled into a police car for protection near parliament on Monday night as he faced a mob of anti-vax protesters accusing him of “protecting paedophiles” and of being a part of the “New World Order”.
Johnson has condemned the actions of protesters, however his spokesperson indicated today that he would not apologise for his own parliamentary attack on Starmer.
At least six Conservative MPs, including a former cabinet minister, joined MPs from across the political spectrum in linking the harassment to the Johnson’s accusation.
House of Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle also hit out at Johnson today, saying that “these sorts of comments only inflame opinions and generate disregard for the House and it is not acceptable”.
When asked if Johnson would apologise for the saga, his spokesman told journalists: “You have the Prime Minister’s words clarifying his position and, as Chris Philp said, the Prime Minister clarified his remarks to suggest he does not think Keir Starmer was individually responsible for the Savile decision.”
Johnson rowed back on his initial assertion last week, saying that he knew Starmer did not make the decision himself not to prosecute the UK’s most infamous paedophile.
However, he maintained that Starmer should take overall responsibility for the actions of the Crown Prosecution Service while he led it between 2008 and 2013.
Philp, junior digital minister and Johnson ally, said in his interview round this morning that Johnson should not be blamed for the harrassment of Starmer.
“I don’t think you can say that’s why it happened because… the people involved in that fracas have previously done similar things to people like Michael Gove and BBC journalist Nick Watt,” he told Sky News.
“They did mention Jimmy Savile. They also mentioned Julian Assange repeatedly, they mentioned Covid-19, they also mentioned the opposition more generally.
“I don’t think you can point to what the Prime Minister said as the cause of that. You certainly can’t blame him for the fact that that mob were clearly behaving in a totally unacceptable way.”
Senior Tory Sir Roger Gale urged Johnson to make a Commons apology on Tuesday over the abuse, which he feared could be the result of Johnson’s “deliberately careless” Savile allegation.
“It has, I’m afraid, played into the hands of some rather unpleasant people,” the MP said.