'Tank-topped Bumboys': New U.K. PM Boris Johnson's Most Outrageous Quotes
Boris Johnson, the U.K.'s new prime minister, has, like U.S. President Donald Trump, a history of making outrageous and offensive remarks.
The Conservative Party selected Johnson to lead it, and the country, replacing Theresa May after Parliament rejected repeatedly her controversial Brexit deal.
Johnson has been a Member of Parliament, Mayor of London, and a journalist in his career before finally rising to the very top.
And in each of those roles he has left a trail of apology-requiring comments that have triggered accusations of racism, misogyny, and homophobia.
Here are some of Johnson's most controversial comments to date.
On Hillary Clinton
"She's got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital."
On Muslim women who wear the burka
"...it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes."
On Islam
"To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers."
On Tony Blair's visit to the Congo
"It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies...the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles."
On the claim that President Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office
"Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President's ancestral dislike of the British Empire—of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender."
On Turkey's President Erdogan, in the form of an offensive poem that won a competition
There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn't even stop to thankera.
On Papua New Guinea
"For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour Party."
On "the African male" and female emancipation
"Almost every dollar of Western aid seems tied to some programme of female emancipation — stamping out clitorectomy, polygamy, bride-price, or whatever. And while some readers may feel vaguely that the African male should not be stampeded into abandoning his ancient prerogatives, one cannot doubt the care — bordering on obsession — with which Western workers pursue their ends."
On businesses' fears about hard-Brexit
"Fuck business."
An official reception for the Queen's birthday, 2018
On gay men in a nightclub
"tank-topped bumboys"
On voting for his party
"Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3."
Said on the campaign trail during the 2005 general election.
