PM berates bungling Boris for mixing up Yemen and Lebanon
BUNGLING Boris Johnson was rebuked by Theresa May at last week’s Cabinet meeting after he repeatedly mixed up Lebanon with Yemen.
The Foreign Secretary’s latest gaffe came during a discussion on the Yemen civil war, which has turned into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Leading the Cabinet debate on Tuesday, Mr Johnson said: ‘We have got to do something about the Saudi war on Lebanon...’
As fellow Ministers looked at each other, wondering if it was a slip of the tongue, he repeated the mistake.
eventually, the Prime Minister interrupted him, saying: ‘Sorry to butt in here, but I think you mean Yemen, not Lebanon.’ Mr Johnson looked at his notes and apologised before carrying on with his analysis of the situation in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia intervened in the civil war in March 2015.
The Riyadh regime supports Yemen’s disputed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur hadi, against the houthi rebels who say they have deposed him.
The Saudi-led campaign, accompanied by a land, sea and air blockade, has so far led to more than 10,000 deaths and a humanitarian crisis.
Ministers were surprised Mr Johnson could have confused Yemen with Lebanon, which is 1,400 miles away and not involved in the conflict. But the mix-up is only the latest in a long line of gaffes.
They include once penning a poem about Turkish leader Recep Tayyip erdogan, accusing him of having ‘relations’ with a goat.
During the EU referendum campaign, Mr Johnson appeared to compare the bloc with previous attempts to create a united europe – including Adolf hitler’s.
And after US President Barack Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate, he described Mr Obama as a ‘part-Kenyan’ with an ‘ancestral dislike’ of Britain.