Boris Johnson's Diplomacy: A Brief History

It was a damning assessment of the negotiating talents of ex-London Mayor Boris Johnson: "Boris negotiated in Europe. I seem to remember last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly new water cannon."

Who said it? Then home secretary and now prime minister Theresa May, launching her bid to become leader. At the time it was an enjoyably risque reference to the day she humiliated Johnson by refusing to allow him to give water cannon he had already bought to London's police.

But now that she has appointed Johnson as foreign secretary, she might hope the quote goes away. Johnson is colorful, but he's also prone to gaffes, and May is going to have to back him with a straight face before long.

To help her prepare, we've gathered five of his best/worst foreign policy moments so far.

What Boris said: "She's got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital."

Whom he said it about: Why, the most likely next leader of the free world, of course! In a Daily Telegraph column in 2007, Johnson wrote that Hillary Clinton "represents, on the face of it, everything I came into politics to oppose: not just a general desire to raise taxes and nationalize things, but an all-round purse-lipped political correctness." He later issued apologies.

What Boris said: "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."

Whom he said it about: Not the president of Kenya, I'm afraid. No, this was a comment on the current leader of the free world, Barack Obama. Johnson wrote in a Sun column before Obama made a long-awaited intervention in the Brexit debate that the president had returned a bust of Churchill to Britain as a snub. Obama later corrected him; he still had a different bust of the great man, but had replaced the one in his office with a bust of Martin Luther King, whom he had to thank for creating the conditions in which he could become president.

What Boris said: "There was a young fellow from Ankara/Who was a terrific w*nkerer./Till he sowed his wild oats/With the help of a goat/But he didn't even stop to thankera."

Whom he said it about: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey and a strong contender for the world's most easily offended politician. Johnson wrote the lines as part of the winning limerick in a competition run by the right-wing Spectator weekly, conceived in solidarity with a German comic who was investigated by police for a satirical anti-Erdogan poem. Johnson's first visit to Ankara will be fun, then.

What Boris said: "It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies."

Whom he said it about: The immediate target of this quote, from another Daily Telegraph column in 2002, was Tony Blair, whose constant globetrotting was a contentious subject at the time. But the word "piccaninnies," an antiquated term for black children, is racist and offensive, and has an undistinguished history of use in such cradles of good race relations as colonial Africa and the slave plantations of the United States. Johnson later apologized, but it won't endear him to Commonwealth countries, or other majority African countries, or anyone really.

What Boris said: "Corduroy-jacketed, snaggletoothed, lefty academics in the U.K."

Whom he said it about: Supporters of boycotts of Israeli goods. "OK," you might say, "so he's opposed to the BDS movement? So are lots of right-wingers." True. But most of them probably wouldn't pick a 2015 visit to the occupied Palestinian territories as the moment to bring it up. The visit was cut short after this and a series of other gaffes. Masterful diplomacy.