Shock and titters as Boris Johnson becomes Britain’s top diplomat

Former London mayor better known for gaffes, stunts and outrageous comments than for tact and diplomacy.

Boris Johnson dangles from a zip wire after getting stuck during a promotional event for the London Olympics on August 1, 2012. Barcroft Media / Barcoft Media via Getty Images

The world reacted with amusement and disbelief to the appointment of London’s former mayor, Boris Johnson, as Britain’s foreign minister – one of the most senior jobs in prime minister Theresa May’s first cabinet.

A former Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt, tweeted that he wished the announcement were a joke, adding: “But I fear it isn’t. Exit upon exit.”

The BBC said Pavek Telick, Czech vice chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European parliament, wryly welcomed a clear sign that those accusing Mrs May of having no sense of humour were mistaken.

And a German journalist, Laura Schneider, tweeted that Berlin TV presenters could not stop themselves laughing as they delivered the news.

With his gaffes, stunts and outrageous comments, Mr Johnson has made himself an easy target for mockery. French television repeatedly shows a clip in which he declares himself firmly in favour of remaining in the European Union before his conversion – described in France as “Brexit par calcul”, in other words a calculated move to boost his hopes of succeeding David Cameron as prime minister – to Leave.

Stories of Mr Johnson’s eccentricities abound. While on a trade mission to Japan last October, when still mayor of London, he flattened a 10-year-old boy, Toki Sekiguchi, during a game of “street rugby”.

“He bounced back, put it behind him and the smile rapidly returned to his face,” Mr Johnson said later after apologising.

Three years before that, he famously got stuck in mid-air while riding a zip wire carrying two Union flags during a stunt connected to London’s hosting of the 2012 Olympics.

At the beginning of last year, the Financial Times told of a sizeable bar bill that British foreign ministry staff had to settle during a visit to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Officials were also said to have narrowly prevented him driving a sports car out of a showroom.

A common jibe at Mr Johnson is that he rather grandly, and with scant justification, sees himself in the mould of Winston Churchill, a notion fuelled by his admiring – and well-received – biography of the late British statesman.

Until Wednesday, Mrs May seemed unconvinced.

Poking fun at his powers of persuasion, with an eye to the forthcoming Brexit negotiations with the EU, she said before he dropped out of the Conservative leadership contest: “Boris negotiated in Europe. I seem to remember last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly new cater cannon.”

The wit and diplomacy of Boris Johnson

• May 2016 Wins a £1,000 (Dh 4,858) prize for writing a crude limerick about Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

• April 2016 Refers to Barack Obama's African heritage when commenting on reports that a bust of Winston Churchill had been removed from the White House: "Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president's ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender."

• December 2015 "Crime has been falling steadily in both London and New York – and the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump."

• November 2015 West Bank meeting with Palestinian officials called off after he tells Tel Aviv audience a trade boycott of Israeli goods is a "completely crazy" idea supported by "corduroy-jacketed, snaggle-toothed, leftie academics in the UK".

• September 2008 Tells a Conservative party conference: "My speaking style was criticised by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg."

• August 2008 "Respectfully" tells Chinese hosts of the Olympic Games in Beijing: "Ping pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century, and it was called Wiff-waff!"

• November 2007 On Hillary Clinton: "She has dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital."

• September 2006 A glancing insult to Papua New Guinea while criticising a former British prime minister, Tony Blair: "For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour party."