Boris Johnson, the Brexit-campaigning brother of the now reappointed minister in charge of space, Jo Johnson, has been given the high-visibility role of UK Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s new government. Of course, it has to be noted that Boris was born “with a silver foot in his mouth” having, somewhat undiplomatically, managed to insult quite a few world leaders in his time.
Highlights/lowlights of Johnson’s gaffes include writing a rude ditty about Turkey’s now embattled dictatorial leader, President Erdogan, in which he managed to rhyme Ankara with wa*kerer (a Johnson made-up word). Worse was that Johnson’s insulting piece also alluded to Erdogan consorting with a goat.
Johnson also recently insulted US President Barack Obama by making reference to his Kenyan roots, alleging that these had made him anti-British, despite the fact that the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya ended over 50 years ago.
And while the UK’s new ace diplomat might be looking forward to working with Hillary Clinton – assuming that she beats Boris’s fellow gaffe-master Donald Trump in the US Presidential election. The only problem is that Boris Johnson once described Hillary Clinton in his newspaper column as looking like “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”. (Perhaps she treated him in there?) 🙂
No doubt Hillary speaks well of Boris.
Having met Boris Johnson, your correspondent can confirm that he is just as he appears on TV: witty, funny and likeable in a slightly bumbling sort of a way. However, this may be just an act as he is also lucid, intelligent and highly ambitious.
When it comes to Hillary’s competitor Donald Trump, who competes with Boris for the greatest number of gaffes, most of the British establishment has already insulted him, so no worries there for our new Foreign Minister even if Trump does win the US election later this year.
So what would the US be like with Trump in charge? Well space may be forgotten about. While outwardly supporting NASA, Trump has already said during his nomination campaign that he is more concerned about the Earth’s infrastructure than space.
Of course, famously the cartoon character, Bart Simpson, in The Simpsons TV series, has already foreseen the future. An episode made in the year 2000 showed what the United States of America would be like under Donald Trump as President. There was no word about space in Bart Simpson’s dream of the future, but it did jokingly warn of the policy of fortifying children’s breakfast cereal, predicting that the result would be that America was overrun by a load of superhuman criminals.
Best not laugh as perhaps young Bart truly is the new Nostradamus.
The problem with political jokes (or forecasts) is that they tend to come true (or get elected). Gulp!
