The Mayor of London used his latest regular Daily Telegraph column to justify going abroad for a break next month.

He said: "Some time before the end of August, I will grab a week's leave, like a half- starved sealion snatching an airborne mackerel, and whatever happens that leave will not be taken in some boarding house in Eastbourne.

"It will not take place in Cornwall or Scotland or the Norfolk Broads. I say stuff Skegness.

"I say bugger Bognor. I am going to take a holiday abroad, and in my view it would be absurd, hypocritical and frankly inhumane to do anything else – and here's why.

"There is ample precedent for the Mayor of London to fly off and fill the upper air with his vapour trails."

It is the latest of his gaffes which regularly upset places around the country.

Reaction

This has led fellow Conservative and Bognor MP Nick Gibb to dismiss Mr Johnson's comments.

He said: "You have to take everything that comes from Boris Johnson with a pinch of salt.

"I don't think there's a town left in Britain that he has not insulted at some point.

"I have issued an open invitation for him to come back to Bognor. He has been to the town once. He came several years ago, just before he became an MP, when he addressed the local Conservative association at somewhere like The Lamb Inn in Pagham."

Mr Gibb said he would be spending most of the parliamentary recess in his home in Aldwick. But he would be taking a holiday overseas in South Carolina in the USA.

Nick Stuart Nicholson, Bognor chamber of commerce's chairman and president, said: "It's most unfair of Boris Johnson to make these comments.

"I'm surprised by them because I thought he would recognise that the merit of British holidays because no one is going abroad at the moment. He should be encouraging people to holiday at home and not putting down places like this."

Box of goodies

A box of Bognor goodies was being sent from the town to Mr Johnson yesterday afternoon.

The collection of gifts had been put together by trader and councillor Paul Wells and deputy town mayor Jeanette Warr.

The package contained items such as a Sussex by the Sea holiday brochure, a leaflet about Bognor museum, a T-shirt with a local image and sweets from the Rock Shop. Mr Wells said: "This will give Boris Johnson something to think about Bognor."

Cllr Jennifer Gillibrand, the town mayor of Bognor, said: "I'd like to invite Boris Johnson and his family to Bognor for the day to enjoy themselves.

"We would see what he has to say after that and he would then be able to withdraw his remark."