I hold no brief for President Erdogan and his suppression of free speech in Turkey - nor does Boris judging from his limerick written in response to Erdogan's crackdown a couple of months ago.
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
As poetry goes its carp, but he will have a mountain to climb at his first meeting with the unpleasant Erdogan ...
Johnson – whose great-grandfather was Turkish – called it “a scandal” that a German court had granted an injunction to prevent comedian Jan Böhmermann repeating his offensive skit about the Turkish president.
“If somebody wants to make a joke about the love that flowers between the Turkish president and a goat, he should be able to do so, in any European country, including Turkey,”
I wasn't saying Boris was wrong (Erdogan is certainly a nasty bit of work when it comes to suppression of free speech), just that it has turned out to be rather a tricky situation - that someone with aspirations to National Leadership probably should have avoided.
I'm wondering if Johnson's been punished by being made a Foreign Secretary :-)
Like being dropped into a room full of all the people you ever insulted in your life(!)