Andrew Mitchell has called people plebs, suggests Michael Portillo Mr Portillo yesterday he wanted to disassociate himself from his remarks on the programme. He told The Daily Telegraph: "I want to withdraw the comment. I was trying to make the point that he would not have used it to a policeman. I said lightheartedly that it might have been a form of words he would use. But I did not mean to say that I had heard him use it and I wish to withdraw that comment. Mr Mitchell said that he had no comment to make on Mr Portillo's claims. Friends of Mr Mitchell said he thought Mr Portillo was saying that he did not believe Mr Mitchell had spoken in the way that police said he did. David Davis MP, the former shadow Home Secretary who has been advising Mr Mitchell over the past year, said: "I have known Andrew Mitchell for longer than Michael Portillo and I have never heard him use that word." Mr Mitchell and Mr Portillo served together in the last Conservative Government under John Major. Mr Mitchell was a Government whip in 1993 and then a junior minister in the Department for Social Security from 1995 to 1997. Mr Portillo was chief secretary to the Treasury, employment secretary and then defence secretary in the same Government between 1994 and 1997. An official police log reported that Mr Mitchell called officers "f---ing plebs" over a dispute about a bicycle in Downing Street in September last year. The row escalated with claims that police officers exaggerated the claims, which eventually led to him quitting as chief whip. Prosecutors are expected to rule next week on whether any officers should face charges over the affair. Shortly after the row broke out, Mr Mitchell told his local newspaper the Sutton Coldfield Observer that he would never use the word "pleb." The MP admitted there was an "altercation" but said his friends and family know that he would never call people "plebs or morons." He said: "I think most people who know me know I would not use words like pleb or moron in describing anyone." Earlier this week David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said Mr Mitchell was owed an apology after an independent report suggested police had been dishonest about a clear the air meeting Mr Mitchell held with officers in the wake of the row.