Spectator competition winners: a poem for Boris

The latest competition called for a safe poem that Boris Johnson could have on hand to quote from when out in the field. The kerfuffle caused by the Foreign Secretary’s murmured quotation of a few lines from Kipling’s poem ‘Mandalay’ during a recent visit to Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar led me to wonder whether it might be wise, given an ever-increasing number of no-go areas subject matter-wise, to challenge you to fashion an all-purpose poem unlikely to offend. Barbara Jones’s Blakean-flavoured entry — ‘And did my feet in foreign clime/ Trample on sensitivities?’ — caught my attention, as did Tim Raikes’s patter song. But they were outflanked by the winners below who take £25 each. The extra fiver is D.A. Prince’s.

D.A. Prince When you require a few bon mots about you (Let’s not be If-men — life’s too bloody short) Look for a lingua franca when men doubt you. Diplomacy’s an art and not a sport.