Boris Johnson has never had a foreign policy before – now is his chance

An address to the Commons on Afghanistan gives the prime minister a chance to set out where he stands now on the crisis, writes John Rentoul

Boris Johnson speaks at a cabinet meeting (AFP via Getty Images)

One of the few times Boris Johnson mentioned Afghanistan in his Daily Telegraph column was the notorious article in 2002 that mentioned “piccaninnies” and “watermelon smiles”. It was a sarcastic welcome back for Tony Blair, who had returned from a trip to India via a stopover in Kabul, where the Taliban had been toppled just a month earlier.

“For a full 120 minutes, he and Cherie shone the light of their countenances upon the people of Afghanistan, and, who knows, perhaps the place is now rife with feminism, habeas corpus and multi-party democracy,” Johnson wrote. If it was unfunny at the time, it reads tragically now.

Johnson had been an MP for seven months, with no discernible views on foreign policy beyond a Conservative entertainer’s desire to make fun of a Labour prime minister’s piety about re-ordering the world to promote human rights.