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Did Boris Johnson dodge the questions at his campaign launch?

<span>Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP</span>
Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

At the end of his Tory leadership campaign launch on Wednesday, Boris Johnson took questions from the press for the first time in more than a year – at only his second major public appearance of 2019. Johnson has been criticised for avoiding public scrutiny and has appeared reluctant to take part in debates with other leadership contenders, prompting one of his rivals, Matt Hancock, to say: “I certainly think that everybody who puts their name forward to be prime minister should be open to scrutiny, should be accountable.”

At his launch Johnson agreed to take six questions from journalists. At least one was jeered by the assembled audience when asking her question, and critics who followed the event accused Johnson of failing to engage with the substance of the questions put to him.

Here are some excerpts from the press conference.

Question: Mr Johnson, you suggested that Brexit would be a straightforward win-win, and actually it’s been a chaotic mess. As foreign secretary you offended people at home and abroad, and you have a reputation for being cavalier with vital detail. Already in this campaign, you’re telling some supporters you’ll do everything to avoid leaving the EU without a deal, and others that you gladly would do that. It’s a simple question: if you want to be prime minister, can the country trust you?

Johnson: Well yes, of course, and the answer, perhaps in that great minestrone of observations there’s one substantive question, one crouton I picked up – which is that you think I’ve been somehow inconsistent in saying that I don’t want a no-deal outcome, but that I think it is right for our great country to prepare for that outcome.

What most people understand is that the best way to avoid a no-deal outcome, the best way to avoid a disorderly Brexit of any kind, is to make the preparations now that will enable us to leave in a managed way if we have to, but above all if we make the preparation s now we will carry the conviction with our friends and partners that we are indeed able to make such an exit if we really have to …

Question: Mr Johnson, you brandish your Brexit credentials, but many of your colleagues worry about your character People who have worked closely with you do not think you are fit to be prime minister.

Johnson: Well, I’m delighted that many of my former colleagues seem to dissent from that view. But, nonetheless, I want to make a general point about the way I do things and the language I use.

Of course, occasionally some plaster comes off the ceiling as a result of a phrase I may have used, or indeed as a result of the way that phrase has been wrenched out of context and interpreted by those who wish for reasons of their own to caricature my views.

But I think it is vital for us as politicians to remember that one of the reasons that the public feels alienated now from us all as a breed, is because too often they feel that we are muffling and veiling our language, if I might put it that way, not speaking as we find – covering everything up in bureaucratic platitudes, when what they want to hear is what we genuinely think. And if sometimes in the course of trying to get across what I genuinely think I use phrases and language that have caused offence then of course I’m sorry for the offence I’ve caused but I will continue to speak as directly as I can.

Question: Have you done anything illegal and, regardless of the answer to that question, do you regret any of the mistakes you’ve made in your political and personal life, and are you saying you would change as prime minister?

Johnson: Have I ever done anything illegal? I cannot swear that I have always observed a top speed limit in this country of 70mph … on your general question, this is the key issue here, do I do what I promise I’m going to do as a politician? That is the issue you legitimately raise, and the answer to that is yes, you look at what we did in City Hall – we said we’d do x, we ended up doing x plus 10 …

I’m going to say one thing about the way I’m going to campaign and the way I hope to be prime minister. I believe as a leader of great public services, it is your job not just to be chief consumer, not just to hold them to account, but also to recognise that you are in some sense their leader and their champion, and we should get behind our police, and we should support them, and by the way we should fund them properly because they do a fantastic job.

Question: Were you telling the truth when you said you had taken cocaine, and do you regret the fact that you took a class A drug?

Johnson: I think the account of this event when I was 19 has appeared many, many times. I think what most people in this country want us to really focus on in this campaign, if I may say so, is what we can do for them and what our plans are for this great country of ours. And I think that the prospectus I’m setting out this morning of solid modern conservatism, of a one-nation vision, championing the wealth-creating sector of our country, extolling the merits of free-market capitalism – yes, I’m going to use that word, because we believe that that is the way to support the poorest and the neediest in society – that is at the core of what we’re trying to do.

That is a message that I don’t think people have heard enough in the last few years. I’m absolutely determined to make it the core of my campaign and all the rest of it I think, frankly, is in danger of blowing us off track.

Question: What exactly did you mean when you said “f” business?

Johnson: If you look at my record as a campaigner, as a politician, I don’t think there is anybody in the modern Conservative party who can honestly be said to have done more to stick up for business, even in the toughest of times.

It was after the crash. I remember vividly there was an absolute feeding frenzy in 2008 on financial services. Everybody said we should allow the bankers to depart to Zurich and Singapore and good riddance, and I thought that was a disastrous approach … I will stick up for every business in this country.

When I was foreign secretary I spent much of my time trying to sell … the UK abroad. And I can tell you that if I’m lucky enough to become our leader and prime minister there will be no more committed and enthusiastic salesperson – salesman – of the UK. That is the mission.

Question: Will you commit now to resign if you fail to meet the 31 October deadline [for leaving the EU]?

Related: Was Boris Johnson as successful as London mayor as he claims?

Johnson: Our job is to engage with everybody, and just to point out the real existential threat that faces both major parties if we fail to get this thing done. In the end, maturity and a sense of duty will prevail. I think it will be very difficult in the end for colleagues in parliament to obstruct the will of the people and to block Brexit.

Because we asked the people, we put the question out to them, and in a sense it was absolutely right to do so, because the issue of membership of the European Union does go fundamentally to people’s sense of what their future is, what their identity is, where they see themselves in the future. It was right to ask the British people, and they returned a very clear answer, by a substantial majority. Parliament voted overwhelmingly to trigger article 50 and get this thing done, and I think if we now block it collectively as parliamentarians we would reap the whirlwind.

So I just say to friends and colleagues: let’s come together and get this thing done … I’m not going to pretend to you now that everything will be plain sailing. There will be difficulties and there may be bumps in the road. But … we will work flat out until October 31 and I think we will get the result that the country needs.