We all know Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as the incredibly posh, privately schooled, Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. We also know he was previously the Mayor of London and that he likes riding his bike. Let's face it, however, as well qualified as he may be, we were all a *touch* surprised, and possibly concerned, when Johnson was promoted to Foreign Secretary.
On top of his political opinions and shock of dyed blonde hair, what BoJo is equally famous for is his uncanny ability to speak without thinking...or at least without running his thoughts past the Prime Minister or anyone in the Cabinet.
Boris has always been good for a laugh but, is he now merely an embarrassment to the UK? These are six of Boris' finest gaffes:
Saudi Arabia:
Literally days after Prime Minister, Theresa May, had been trying to sweet-talk the Saudis and ensure them of our continued working relationship, Boris managed to put his foot in it by accusing the country of playing 'puppeteer' in 'proxy wars' in the Middle East. Whilst he may well have been speaking his mind and may well have a point, his latest in a long list of unfortunate publicly available statements does make the Government look like it's not exactly on the same page when it comes to foreign policy.
USA
Way back in 2007, while writing a column for The Guardian newspaper, Johnson spoke of his support of Hillary Clinton to run for U.S.
President. After crudely making nonsensical, sexist comments about her 'pouty lips' and 'dyed blonde hair' he clearly felt he really hadn't insulted Mrs. Clinton enough and so proceeded to say that she had 'a steely blue stare, like a nurse in a mental hospital'.
Turkey
In return for receiving a prize of £1,000 from a competition in the #Spectator magazine, Boris penned a highly offensive poem about Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In the limerick, Johnson referred to the President as a 'wankerer' and suggested that he has sex with goats. We can only hope that our Foreign Minister is NOT the one to call the Turkish leader and offer his condolences at the recent loss of life in the twin bombings outside the Besiktas stadium in Istanbul.
China
During the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, Boris managed to anger 1.5 billion people in the Communist state and around the world by stating that the English actually invented the game of Ping Pong and not the Chinese.
According to Johnson, table tennis was developed from the Victorian game called 'wiff waff', which must have come as somewhat of a surprise to the Chinese people about their beloved national sport.
United States (again...)
You guessed it...insulting one high-level US politician was never going to be enough for Boris, so it was only natural that he continue to blind us with his ignorant world views and launch an attack on serving US President, Barack Obama. After suggesting that Mr. Obama had an 'ancestral dislike' of Britain, he then compounded his racist insults by going on to describe the Hawaiian-born President as 'part-Kenyan'.
UK
In the spirit of being fair, Johnson has also angered and insulted British citizens by accusing the residents of Liverpool of bathing in their 'victim status' after the Hillsborough disaster, which saw 96 football fans killed in the biggest disaster in the history of UK sport.
He then went on to make a scathing attack on the fans present on the day and complain that Liverpool FC refuses to take any responsibility for the 'drunken' supporters who, as he stated, 'mindlessly' tried to force their way into the ground.
One thing we can say with absolute certainty is that life will never be dull with Boris around.
