The case of Blundering Boris

Blustering Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has never been known for tact, and many were surprised when May made him Britain’s top diplomat. Now he stands accused of endangering a British-Iranian woman imprisoned in Iran with his loose talk. The husband and employer of Nazarin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — serving a fiveyear sentence for plotting the “soft toppling” of Iran’s government — say she could face more prison time after Johnson told lawmakers last week that she had been training Iranian journalists before she was arrested last year.

Husband Richard Ratcliffe and the charitable Thomson Reuters Foundation say Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on vacation visiting family. They say Johnson’s statement was seized on by Iranian authorities as evidence she was engaged in propaganda against the regime.

Johnson accepted earlier this week that “my remarks could have been clearer.” “The UK government has no doubt that she was on holiday in Iran when she was arrested last year and that was the sole purpose of her visit,” he told lawmakers in a contrite statement to the House of Commons.