Boris Johnson's dad said women in burqas shouldn't fly planes and Nish Kumar's facepalm is all of us

Stanley Johnson appeared on Channel 4’s election coverage and was booed after several crass remarks about the Muslim veil.

Attempting to defend his son’s infamous comparison between Muslim women and "letterboxes", Johnson senior said:

Most of the things that have been said against him have taken the article out of context. And I don't want to go further down this route, but I will say, if I was a female fighter jet pilot, I would expect someone to say 'don't wear a burqa'.

Comedian Nish Kumar was visibly shocked and reacted in the only appropriate way, by holding his head in his hands. He replied:

What are you talking about man?

Robert Rinder, the barrister and television personality, was equally aghast and took the Prime Minister’s father to task:

How dare you sit there and use language like that. That is disgraceful and it shouldn't require Nish to have to defend that. Whether I'm a person of the left or the right you don't sit there and use the platform that you've been gifted to sit there to say eanything else. And people who want to defend our country should do so in circumstances where they're adequately qualified.

It is astonishing that Stanley Johnson is able to say this kind of thing in public but it somehow feels as though it becomes more acceptable with each passing day. Speaking exclusively to indy100, Kumar said:

I hope Stanley has taken some time out to reflect on his remarks and considers why myself, Rob and Katherine found them so toxic. I fear he hasn’t, but there’s always hope.

Hope is in short supply today but we need it now more than ever.

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