Boris Johnson refuses three times to deny affair with US businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri in TV interview as new visa claims emerge

THE Prime Minister refused three times to deny an affair with a former American model when he was Mayor of London.

Boris Johnson has insisted there was "no impropriety" about taxpayer grants awarded to a tech company run by Jennifer Arcuri.

Ms Arcuri was given £126,000 in public money and privileged access to three foreign trade missions led by Mr Johnson while he was Mayor of London.

Four pals of the 34-year-old American claimed this weekend she had told them she had a sexual relationship with Mr Johnson, 55, while he was married to Marina Wheeler.

In an interview with Sky News today Mr Johnson would not deny having had an affair with Ms Arcuri.

He said: "I've said what I have to say about that matter. I think perhaps the most important point is that I'm very, very proud of everything we did in London."

Pressed to confirm he was not denying the affair, Mr Johnson said: "The crucial thing is that in terms of promoting London, everything was done with complete propriety."

A friend told the Daily Mail last week that Mr Johnson had visited a flat where Ms Arcuri lived in Shoreditch, east London, for lessons to help him "understand tech".

The flat had a dancing pole.

Elsewhere tonight it emerged Ms Arcuri beat neatly 2,000 applicants to gain one of 200 Tier 1 entrepreneur visas for her firm, Innotech, from a scheme run by a former official of Mr Johnson.

The Guardian reported that Paola Cuneo, the then director of the Sirius programme, previously spent two-and-a-half years working at London & Partners, the official mayoral promotional agency which Mr Johnson had responsibility for while he was Mayor.

The revelations will raise further questions over a possible conflict of interest and whether Mr Johnson played an improper role in obtaining government support for the American model.

THIGH SQUEEZE

The storm comes with Mr Johnson separately forced to deny squeezing the thigh of female journalist Charlotte Edwardes – even though he could not remember the lunch where the incident allegedly took place.

The Prime Minister said claims he squeezed Ms Edwardes' thigh at a lunch 20 years ago were not true, but he had "no memory whatsoever" of the event.

Reflecting on the pressure he was under, the Prime Minister accepted it was "inevitable" he would come under "shot and shell", but said he thought it was "raining down" on the Government because of his vow to take the UK out of the EU on October 31.

In response to Ms Edwardes' claims about an incident at the Spectator's HQ shortly after Mr Johnson became the magazine's editor, Mr Johnson told ITV the allegation was "absolutely not true" even though he could not remember the lunch.

Asked if women could trust him, he said "absolutely" and claimed his administration as mayor of London was "more or less a total feminocracy".

In a further blow to the Tories, on a day when they tried to burnish their credentials as the party of law and order, senior MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown was ordered home in disgrace after clashing with conference security staff.

The party said his conduct was "totally unacceptable" after an altercation as he tried to get his fiancee into a restricted area of the venue.

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