UPDATE: Boris has made his first diplomatic visit to Turkey, where a journalist invited him to apologise for the poem. He didn’t. Good.
Boris dodges invitation to apologise for calling Pres. Erdoğan a "wankerer." Says that such "trivia" has not been raised during his visit.
— Laura Pitel (@laurapitel) September 27, 2016
—Original article—
Boris Johnson’s stunning elevation to Foreign Secretary sparked an industrial-scale trawl of his back catalogue, in the frantic hope of finding a gaffe so great it would stop his cabinet career in its tracks. (The US press have already had a field day.)
Pity the journalists who are, right now, trawling EVERYTHING Boris has ever written to find rude things he's said about foreigners.
— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) July 13, 2016
The hunters didn’t have to look far for one Johnson gem: a recent entry into The Spectator‘s competition to craft the best insulting poem aimed at Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Here’s his limerick – which won the competition – in its entirety:
There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.
The scansion’s shaky, but the sentiment is there: Boris called Erdogan a goat-fucker.
Hooray! The man is a stomping autocrat who strangles the press, is midway through an enormous purge of the Turkish state and thinks nothing of trying to get comedians who mock him thrown in jail.
He deserves to take one on the chin from somebody he can’t lock up.
Twitter is full of apparently liberal people criticising Boris Johnson for having a pop at illiberal, autocratic Erdogan. It's ridiculous.
— Stig Abell (@StigAbell) July 14, 2016
Boris’s job as foreign secretary is to project British values – including the inviolable right to ridicule the powerful.
Sure, it is unusually forthright for a man who is suddenly Britain’s top diplomat.
But Boris was never going to be a quiet and discreet voice abroad, nor, post-Brexit, should he be.
He would be a rubbish ambassador for the UK if he kowtowed to Erdogan’s autocratic tendencies for the sake of politeness.
Nonetheless, Turkey’s chaotic and abortive coup on Friday night unleashed a wave of pearl-clutching fears that Boris’s five-liner had sunk relations with Ankara for good.
At least the 1st major foreign policy issue for Boris to deal with doesn't involve a president he deeply offended…https://t.co/kswQdjW4DA
— Matthew Taylor (@mat8iou) July 16, 2016
Wonder how Boris will manage given the offensive poem he wrote about Erdogan in the past?
— Jane Mowat (@JaneMowat1) July 16, 2016
I'd just like to remind everyone that Boris Johnson is the UKs Foreign Minister tonight – the man who wrote a poem calling Erdogan a wanker
— Richard Looby (@RichardLooby) July 16, 2016
Thankfully common membership of NATO, large aid donations to help manage the Syrian crisis – not to mention centuries of history – are likely to withstand even a disobliging limerick.
Meanwhile it is a reminder of how diplomacy works – not by sweeping human rights abuses and a contempt for democracy under the rug in pursuit of a quiet life.
Instead, in its bombastic way, the tension between Boris the poet and Boris the diplomatic is showing how these difficult relationships ought to work.
Yes, we will work with you in both our national interests. But when you’re acting like a goat-fucker with a god complex, we ought to say so.
I’m glad Boris had the balls to do it – may he never change.
