Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FULL OF BULL
Gaffe-prone Boris infuriates Spanish by backing ‘sport’
BORIS Johnson’s bid to boost Anglo-spanish relations backfired spectacularly when he launched into a bizarre defence of bullfighting.
The blundering Foreign Secretary told a dinner to celebrate ties between the nations that trying to ban the cruel sport was “political correctness gone mad”.
MPS said the comments infuriated the Spanish at the event, many of whom are opposed to barbaric bullfighting.
One guest said Johnson “lectured” the Spanish and told them to keep supporting the “sport”.
The insider added: “He antagonised every Spaniard there. They fumed for the rest of the dinner. Bullfighting is the subject of lively debate. Some parts of Spain have banned it. The Spanish don’t like people painting a caricature of their country as bullfighting, flamenco and paella.” One Spanish guest told a British MP: “He’s a clown. He’s not fit to represent your country.”
And an industrialist at the dinner said Mr Johnson “was making fun of the barbaric”.
The Foreign Secretary’s latest gaffe came to light shortly after the Mirror told how both Tory and Labour MPS urged Theresa May to sack him over comments he made that could double the jail term of British mum Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe in Iran.
Mr Johnson had claimed she was in the country training journalists – a statement Teheran insisted was “proof ” she was there as a spy not a tourist. According to his biographer Sonia Purnell, Mr Johnson and sister Rachel reported on animal welfare in Spain and Portugal in 1985. Her book said they took pictures of bullfights.
League Against Cruel Sports director of campaigns Chris Luffingham said: “If it’s true Boris Johnson has defended bullfighting, then it’s not political correctness that’s gone mad.
“If Boris has attended a bullfight, he would have seen a bull trapped in a small arena and attacked relentlessly
mill towards the ancient arena. Yet this is no sporting or cultural event they’ve come to see, more a series of ritual sacrifices.
In this city the bullfight is a sacred experience. Old men drink red wine in bars outside as they argue the merits of matadors like football fans comparing Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
A couple of years ago I paid my £15 to watch the spectacle. Soon the horror with lances and barbed harpoons. The bull is weakened, confused and tortured before it is killed with a sword.
“If Boris has seen this and still thinks bullfighting is defendable, then we’d be concerned about his judgment.”
Bullfighting was banned in Catalonia in 2010 and its popularity in other parts of Spain is in decline.
Mr Johnson made his comments at a dinner in Bath on Saturday organised to discuss Brexit and the Catalan crisis.
The Foreign Office said: “The Foreign Secretary was expressing a personal view that he respects this Spanish tradition. However, he does not personally support bullfighting and he is proud the UK upholds the highest in animal welfare standards, including the ban on bullfighting in the UK.” unfolds as bull after bull is slaughtered. The helpless animals are stabbed with bandilleras. Weakened and confused, the bull staggers like a drunk before the final act when he is despatched by sword.
The better the matador at severing the spinal cord, the quicker the death.
I left after 30 minutes, baffled and angry, as mules dragged away another carcass to the abattoir.