Just a few years before he became London mayor, Boris Johnson was sacked as a Conservative frontbench spokesman for lying about his private life. In 2004, it emerged that Johnson had conducted a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt, which resulted in the daughter of the late Lord Wyatt having an abortion. Their extra-marital relations was publicly announced by Petronella's mother, Lady Verushka Wyatt; Johnson – a married father of four – had previously been dismissed claims of the affair as 'an inverted pyramid of piffle'.