Putin his big foot in it

TORY whip Chris Heaton-Harristweets: “My extra sensitive toothpaste doesn’t like it when I use other toothpastes.”

TV rottweiler Jeremy Paxman has an anecdote in his memoirs that neatly shows how international relations work.

When John Major was PM he asked then Russian president Boris Yeltsin: “Well, Boris, in a word, how is Russia?” Yeltsin replied: “Good.”

Major persisted: “And in more than one word?” “Not good,” Yeltsin said.

It was a rare moment of candour in the delicate dance of diplomacy through which our world leaders waltz.

Diplomacy is the art of conveying what you mean without quite saying what you mean.

Or in the words of Winston Churchill: “Telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.”

Good diplomacy wraps hard messages in soft phrases, so ambassadors do not end up grappling with each other mano a mano like Ukip MEPs.

That’s because fisticuffs do not solve anything – not even a Ukip leadership contest.

It was with that in mind that I watched our diplomat-in-chief Boris Johnson make a dipstick of himself in the Commons Syria debate.

Despair

I can imagine the entire Foreign Office staff burying their heads in their hands in despair as he called on protestors to picket the Russian Embassy in London over Moscow’s role in bombing Syria.

The right message. But Boris was the wrong man to deliver it. The Russians are vile enough to launch reprisals against his staff in Moscow.

State sponsored demos are the kind of thing totalitarian regimes stoke up, not Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

They were all the rage in Chairman Mao’s China and the Ayatollahs’ Iran. North Korea’s Kim Jongun is still a fan.

In a democracy, demonstrations should be spontaneous outpourings of righteous public anger, independent of government ministers.

Especially government ministers whose job it is to talk to the Russians about how we might peacefully end the heartbreaking suffering in Aleppo.

There may well be a punch-up with Vladimir Putin to enforce no-fly zones but we must explore every diplomatic avenue first.

Boris will lose street cred with the international community if he tries personally to whip up indigation on the streets.

As one Boris might say to another: “Not good.”