Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary in the Conservative government, referred belittlingly to his Labour counterpart and aroused the ire of the speaker John Bercow who blasted him for his sexism.
Johnson apologized with the “I am sorry if you were offended” phrasing commonly used by people to avoid admitting that what they said was wrong, irrespective of whether the other person was offended or not.
John Bercow drew applause from Labour MPs when he upbraided the foreign secretary at Foreign Office questions in the Commons. Johnson then said he wished to prostrate himself in front of the Speaker, and that he apologised for “any inadvertent sexism or discourtesy that you may have deemed me to have been guilty of”.
“And I heartily tender my apologies to the right honourable lady if she was offended by what I said and I meant no harm. And I apologise unreservedly to her if I have offended the feelings of the right honourable lady.”
I have linked to clips of Bercow before. He strongly reminds me in his looks and way of speaking of Monty Python’s Terry Jones.
“And I apologise unreservedly to her if I have offended the feelings of the right honourable lady.”
I hate that shit. It’s not an apology unless it contains the magic formula “I will not do that again.” Someone should punch him.
Now that’s a Speaker.
@ Marcus
Someone should punch him.
Considering it’s Boris, there probably is a line-up.
Johnson is a complete jerk.
That was lovely.
With apologies to John Entwhistle (if I have offended his feelings)
“Creepy, crawly
Creepy, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
He’s come to a sticky end
Don’t think he will ever mend
Never more will he crawl ’round
He’s embedded in the ground
Boris the spider
Boris the spider”
Charge a fiver a go and we could pay off the national debt.
Richard @#6 if only he had come to a sticky end. One of the things I hate about him apart from his persistent lying is his ability to bounce back when any half-way decent person would be long gone.
Dunc @#7 add in Gove, Rees Mogg and Hunt and we could easily make a surplus.
It’s the way that Boris Johnson continues to smirk while delivering his hyperbolic “I prostrate myself” apology, that smirk being delivered to his friends behind him. It’s the carefully nuanced way he makes sure his own crowd can see exactly how sorry he isn’t. It’s the way he is proud for everyone to see exactly how far he was able to go to push the Speaker to cause that outburst with no further consequences. It’s the way he’s now established a new boundary to his behaviour, but will carefully push at other boundaries for a while, at least.
Any parent of an adolescent will recognise this. Any victim of a playground bully will recognise thus. Any grownup will recognise this.
But we members of this mature democracy and our illustrious government and our strong and stable prime minister see fit to elevate him to one of the highest positions in government.