Toby Young explains why hiring Boris Johnson as head of MI6 is great for Britain
The fact that he comes across as a bumbling Brit may not do us any harm overseas, let’s face it, most foreigners already think of us that way
LOOK out Moneypenny! The secret service has a new boss and he makes 007 look like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
That’s right, Boris Johnson is the new Foreign Secretary and, among his other responsibilities, will be overseeing Britain’s international spy network.
I wonder what they’ll make of a man who has difficulty finding a brush in his bathroom, let alone a safe house in the back streets of Baghdad.
On the other hand, he should enjoy test-driving the new Bond car. Let’s just hope it doesn’t have an ejector seat or he could end up dangling from an overhead wire waving a union jack.
Then again, the last time that happened in the run-up to the London Olympics it didn’t do him any harm.
But persuading MI6 he can be trusted with state secrets will be the least of his problems.
As Foreign Secretary, he will also be in charge of Britain’s diplomatic service and diplomacy isn’t his strong suit.
His views on Africa’s post- colonial history are not likely to secure him a visiting professorship at the School of African and Oriental Studies.
He once said: “The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we’re not in charge any more.”
As for Turkey, he recently entered a competition in The Spectator to write an offensive poem about Recep Erdogan, the country’s president.
His winning entry went as follows: “There was a young fellow from Ankara, Who was a terrific w*nkerer, Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didn’t even stop to thankera.”
But Boris’s political incorrectness isn’t confined to foreign countries. He likened Hillary Clinton to “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”.
That may not go down too well when she’s the next US president. After a statement like that, he’ll have difficulty persuading her to accept a Ferrero Rocher, let alone a British resolution on the UN Security Council.
So does this mean BoJo is completely unsuited to the job? Not necessarily.
For one thing, his appointment sends a clear message to our partners in the EU that we’re serious about Brexit.
No wonder our pro-Remain European allies reacted with such fury.
The French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault branded Boris a “liar” with “his back against the wall”.
Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called him an “irresponsible politician” who “bolted” after Brexit.
“Everyone in the European Parliament thinks it’s a bad joke and that the Brits have lost it,” an EU source told the BBC.
If the Eurocrats are throwing their toys out of the pram, Boris is off to a good start.
Then there’s the fact that he thinks Brexit will be good for the UK, unlike so many of his senior Westminster colleagues.
If the new Prime Minister is serious about taking us out of the EU, we need a Foreign Secretary who’s upbeat about Britain’s post-Brexit future, not another doom-monger.
It will be the job of Britain’s 150 ambassadors to sell this new vision of the UK to the rest of the world, so it makes sense they should be led by someone who believes in it.
Boris is a pretty good salesman in his own right. As Mayor of London, his main job was to attract business and investment to our capital — and the transformation of the city’s skyline is testament to how effective he was. If he can do the same for UK PLC, Britain’s depressed northern cities will be lit up like Las Vegas.
Okay, he’s not your typical, smooth-talking, foreign affairs panjandrum. He’s more like a mixture of Benny Hill and the Duke of Edinburgh.
But the fact that he comes across as a bumbling Brit from central casting may not do us any harm overseas. Let’s face it, most foreigners already think of us that way. It’s one of the reasons Britain’s exports do so well and why 36million tourists visited the UK last year.
That’s the image of Britain embodied by Boris Johnson — Harry Potter, James Bond and the Earl of Grantham all in one.
Above all, he has the gift of lifting people’s spirits. At the moment, our neighbours are feeling a bit miffed about our decision to leave the EU.
Boris is the man to persuade them that far from being xenophobic little Englanders, we are still ebullient, optimistic people. We haven’t left Europe; we’ve joined the rest of the world.
Britain is open for business and Boris is the ideal person to start spreading the news.