British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth.
He once described Hillary Clinton as “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital” with “dyed blond hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare.” He said Barack Obama is “part-Kenyan” with an “ancestral dislike” of Britain. He joked about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “having relations” with a goat.
In an on-camera interview, he somewhat nonsensically compared the European Union to a “gigantic lobster. With butter sauce.” (In a different interview, he suggested that the E.U.'s vision of a unified Europe was similar to the goals of Hitler and Napoleon.)
And in Parliament on Tuesday, he referred to Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary for the opposition Labour Party, as Lady Nugee. Nugee is the last name of Thornberry's husband, Christopher.
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Johnson appeared to be disparaging Thornberry for asking whether the government is prepared to take Russia to an international criminal court over the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil. In his response, Johnson referred to Thornberry as “the noble and learned Lady Baroness, whatever it is, I can’t remember what it is … Nugee.”
That comment prompted a sharp admonition from the speaker of the House of Commons, who deemed it “sexist” and “inappropriate.”
“We do not namecall in this chamber,” John Bercow said to applause from Labour lawmakers. “We do not address people by the titles of their spouses. The shadow foreign secretary has a name, and it is not 'Lady Something.' ”
Bercow went on: “It is inappropriate and frankly sexist to speak in those terms, and I am not having it in this chamber. That is the end of the matter. That parlance is not legitimate, and it will not be allowed, and it will be called out.”
In response, Johnson said he would like to prostrate himself in front of Bercow and apologized for “any inadvertent sexism or discourtesy that you may have deemed me to have been guilty of.”
“I heartily tender my apologies to the right honorable lady if she was offended by what I said, and I meant no harm,” Johnson said. “And I apologize unreservedly to her if I have offended the feelings of the right honorable lady.”
