Boris Johnson’s past haunts him at conference with John Kerry

Boris Johnson must have known before he stepped into the Locarno Room at the foreign office for a joint press conference with his US counterpart John Kerry that his past was about to come back to taunt him. Sure enough, his questions were prepared with what he called his "obiter dicta" from 30 years of journalism, including insulting comments on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“I’m afraid that there is such a rich thesaurus now of things that I have said that have been, one way or another, through what alchemy I do not know, somehow misconstrued that it would really take me too long to engage in a full-blown itinerary or apology to all concerned. And I think most people who read these things, in their proper context, can see exactly what was intended,” he said, before attempting to bore his listeners into submission with bromides about current global challenges.

Johnson started with a sober statement about Syria, Yemen and Britain's commitment to remaining an international player after it leaves the European Union. But despite his smart new haircut and the glasses he wore to read the statement, he was always going to appear dishevelled and short on gravitas next to the patrician Kerry.

Johnson is only a few days in the job, so he has yet to learn the art of looking interested while somebody else is speaking. So while Kerry was going through an exhaustive, diplomatic tour d’horizon, the foreign secretary gazed at George Gilbert Scott’s barrel-vaulted ceiling, scanned the audience for familiar faces or folded his arms and stared straight ahead.

Stuffiness and self-importance

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Boston Brahmin whose name is a byword for stuffiness and self-importance throughout Capitol Hill and

Foggy Bottom

, Kerry has at 6’4” a strong claim on the title of the longest string of misery in American public life. Even he, however, could hardly contain his mirth when an American reporter skewered Johnson over his record as a liar, most recently during the EU referendum campaign.

Kerry stressed that the referendum was now in the past and that its outcome must be respected but he made clear that Washington now expects Britain to seek the closest possible relationship with the EU consistent with Brexit.

“As Britain and the EU begin negotiating the new terms of their partnership, America is rooting for, and will do all we can to try to encourage and assist in the development of the smoothest possible transition and a highly integrated and collaborative UK-EU relationship,” he said.

Kerry praised Johnson’s intellectual gifts and reported that the US ambassador to the EU, who was at Oxford with the foreign secretary, had described him as a “very smart and capable man”.

Johnson, who had until that moment retained his new, ministerial air of composure, suddenly returned to his old, huffing, puffing, blustering self.

“Phew. Stop there, that’s great,” he said.

Kerry took a step towards him, gripped his arm and said: “It’s called diplomacy, Boris.”