Boris’s awkward Erdogan encounter

Boris Johnson has never been afraid of expressing himself but he might well have regretted his verbosity yesterday when he had a rather awkward encounter at the Nato summit in Madrid. As Johnson sat at the summit table, a tall figure loomed over him and gripped the Prime Minister’s back. Johnson turned around to be greeted by Turkish President Recep Erdogan, with whom he, er, has some previous history.

For back in 2016 when Boris was a humble backbencher, The Spectator ran an offensive limerick competition. Its aim was to poke fun at Erdogan who, at the time, was trying to prosecute a German comedian over a rude poem. Johnson submitted his suggestion and won the £1,000 prize. His five line effort went as follows:

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.

Judging by the subsequent back-slapping yesterday, looks like there wasn’t too much rancour-er from the wankerer of Ankara…