New British PM Boris Johnson’s jaw-dropping gaffes – a brief history

As Boris Johnson begins life as Britain’s next prime minister, he enters 10 Downing Street with a back catalogue jam-packed with highly cringe-worthy diplomatic gaffes. RT takes a look back at a few of BoJo’s memorable moments.

Erdogan poem alleging Turkish President had sex with a goat

When he was Mayor of London, Johnson won the “President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition” held by the Spectator weekly in 2016. The flamboyant Brexiteer, a former editor of that magazine, was awarded £1,000 for a limerick which alleges that Erdogan had sex with a goat.

Johnson’s limerick reads:
“There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wan****r
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera”

“Clear the dead bodies” in Libya & colonial poem in Myanmar

He suggested in October 2017 that Sirte in Libya could become the next Dubai, but that it had to clear away the “dead bodies” first. The comment was made at a Conservative Party Conference fringe event, prompting calls for him to be sacked.

“There’s a group of UK business people, actually, some wonderful guys who want to invest in Sirte on the coast, near where Gaddafi was captured and executed, as some of you may have seen,” Johnson said.

“They have got a brilliant vision to turn Sirte into the next Dubai,” he continued. “The only thing they have got to do is clear the dead bodies away.”

Johnson was also accused of being remarkably undiplomatic after a video emerged of him reciting a colonial poem by Rudyard Kipling on his visit to Myanmar earlier this year. At one point, the British ambassador interjected to point out that it wasn’t the best choice of literature for the occasion.

“F**k business”

Conservatives have historically always prided themselves as being the ‘natural party for business.’ So, in June 2018, when Johnson allegedly told an EU ambassador, who was concerned with the reaction of business leaders to the idea of a no-deal Brexit, to “F**k Business,” it went down like a bucket of sick with fellow Tories.

And there’s more…

The Etonian was also forced to apologize for using several racist words in a 2002 newspaper column to describe people that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair would be visiting on a trip to the continent of Africa.

He suggested Blair would be greeted “with crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies” a highly offensive term for black children. He added that when Blair touched down in Congo, the “tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles.”

It’s safe to say that Johnson has made his mark when it comes to diplomatic affairs and that a shrinking violet he is not. Whether he can avoid making yet more embarrassing gaffes as prime minister is anyone’s guess, but the question that has to be asked is, does he care?

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