Boris Johnson believes we must be ‘civil and kind to each other’, does he? Well then, let’s remind ourselves of his most ‘civil and kind’ moments

The prime minister’s request should apparently not be considered to apply retrospectively, though. It is, you know, more an aspiration for the future

The PM has an extensive back catalogue of gracious comments (Getty)

It is now just over three months since Allegra Stratton was hired as the first official press secretary for 10 Downing Street, her job being to host press briefings on behalf of the prime minister, on live television. That not one such briefing has yet occurred is in some ways unfortunate. The January date for the first such briefing has come and gone, though on the Johnsonian scale of over-promise and under-deliver, it does not rank so highly.

At the most recent time of asking, the room in which the briefings are to be held was not ready. In hindsight, perhaps, they should have hired Carol Smillie instead, and Handy Andy too, while they were at it.

It does mean that, for now, Ms Stratton is doing things in what is shortly to become the old-fashioned way, and hosting the daily briefing of journalists via daily conference call. And it also means that, for the time being, such scenes as follows have been cruelly robbed of their rightful television audience.

When Ms Stratton was asked about some rather weird WhatsApp messages written by Boris Johnson, in which he claimed that the Labour Party was using a House of Commons debate on a planned cut in universal credit to “incite hatred and bullying”, she offered the following explanation: “I think the prime minister believes that all of us, in our political language in our debate, need to remember to be civil and kind to each other.”

Ms Stratton would then have to clarify that this request, from Boris Johnson, for people to be “civil and kind to each other” with their political language, should not be considered to apply retrospectively. It was, you know, more an aspiration for the future.

Which is just as well. Because, to take just one of around a thousand or so examples, it is not all that long since Boris Johnson became foreign secretary, in 2016, and held a press conference that actually was televised, standing next to his then opposite number from the United States, John Kerry. Alas, as the prime minister so likes to say, we shall have to quote two of the questions asked that day, in full.

The first, on the subject of Hillary Clinton, was asked by a US journalist from the Associated Press. “She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital,” he said. “You also compared her to Lady Macbeth. Do you take these comments back or do you want to take them with you into your new job as some kind of indicator of the type of diplomacy you will practice?” Mr Johnson, by way of reply, mumbled that he’d rather be talking about Syria. No mention, then, of the need for kinder and more civil language.

The New York Times was next. “You have an unusually long history of wild exaggerations and frankly outright lies that I think few foreign secretaries have prior to this job,” the journalist asked. “I’m just wondering how Mr Kerry and others should believe what you say, considering this very, very long history.”

Mr Johnson appears to be of the view that the Labour Party forcing a House of Commons debate on universal credit is a “stunt”. This from the chap who, far more recently than 2016, summoned the TV cameras to an empty warehouse near Birmingham so he could get in a digger on which the words “Get Brexit Done” had been written, and drive it through a polystyrene wall.

Of course, we’ve not even scratched the surface of the Mr Johnson back catalogue on the subject of kinder, more civilised politics. We haven’t even mentioned his description of a Ugandan children’s choir as “Aids-ridden choristers”, the picanninies with watermelon smiles, the Muslim women who look like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.

Nor the time, when prime minister, that he looked across the dispatch box and told a Labour MP, Paula Sherriff, who had just been telling the House of Commons that she had been receiving death threats, that he had “never heard such humbug in all my life”. My notes from those happier times of five years ago state that, on hearing the words used by Boris Johnson, Mr Kerry winced so hard the corners of his mouth touched his ears.

It’s not clear how much longer we’ll have to wait for the Allegra show to start. One somewhat complicating factor is that having the briefings on TV to begin with was Dominic Cummings’s idea, who imagined by building a direct TV bridge between a duplicitous government and a willing TV audience, the media that traditionally sit in the middle could be undermined. But then Ms Stratton was hired to do the job, setting in motion a chain of events in 10 Downing Street that would result in Cummings’s services no longer being required.

Ms Stratton is not the type of person to want to undermine Westminster journalists, and as such is not the type of person to actually want to do the job she was hired for, for the reason it was created, by the man she got sacked.

Plenty to think about there, but in the meantime, as Ms Stratton’s preparations continue, she may wish to dig out the old footage. The full face wince is an expression one imagines Ms Stratton will have to get used to, as will the rest of us.