Comment: Matthew Syed | Rise and fall of the Golliwog | A writer's tale: when the name was used on me

Boris Johnson waded into the Carol Thatcher sacking controversy today when he declared she should not have been dropped by the BBC for using a racial epithet.

The Mayor of London claimed that saying “something a bit offensive” was not enough to justify the sacking of the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s daughter.

Mrs Thatcher was told by producers that she would no longer be employed as a regular presenter on the One Show after allegedly describing Jo-Wifried Tsonga, a tennis player of French-African origin, as a “golliwog frog” and a “half-golliwog”. The remarks were made off-air after recording an episode of the magazine show.

Mr Johnson, who was forced to apologise last year for describing black children as “piccaninnies” with "watermelon smiles", said that her indiscretion should not have been punished so severely.

“I don’t think she should have been fired,” he told LBC, a London radio station.

“I think the way to deal with it if someone says something a bit offensive in a green room and you are the producer of the show and everybody else has taken umbrage and feels uncomfortable - which is what happened, as I understand it - then you take that person on one side and you say ’Listen, you’ve got to understand we’ve all got to work together and you’ve got to watch what you say and you’ve got to be sensitive’.

“But I don’t think you fire someone, I really don’t.”

Mr Johnson is also a regular guest on BBC programmes such as Have I Got News For You and Who Do You Think You Are.

Mrs Thatcher’s spokeswoman has said that she used the word as a joke in what she saw as a private conversation, and offered a “fulsome apology” when challenged by the corporation.

It is claimed that at the gathering of 12 people in the green room, Mrs Thatcher used the phrase repeatedly in front of co-presenter Adrian Chiles, the show’s host, and Jo Brand, who had appeared as a guest, while they talked about the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Mr Johnson’s remarks were today criticised by Jennette Arnold, a Labour member of the London Assembly.

“The symbolism of the golliwog is colonialist, racist and harks back to time when black people were dismissed as slave, servant, and figures of fun. It is an image associated with the demeaning of black people,” she said.

“There are no second chances when anyone in public life uses such offensive language and I find it hard to believe that the Mayor doesn’t understand this.

“He should engage his brain and think about the people he represents, speaks for and is supposed to defend, before he opens his mouth.”

A spokesman for the Mayor attempted to clarify his comment. “He emphasised Carol Thatcher’s comments were clearly offensive and unacceptable and that she should have been advised accordingly by the BBC," he said.

“However the Mayor made it clear that he finds it hard to justify firing someone for an off-air remark.”

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