Angela Eagle left dumbstruck after she finds out about Boris Johnson’s shock promotion
Labour leadership contender had to take 30 seconds to compose herself
GOBBY wannabe Labour leader Angela Eagle was left speechless last night as she was told Boris Johnson had been made Foreign Secretary.
The former frontbencher was mid rant about the former Mayor of London at a pro-European event in London when she was struck dumb as an audience member gave her the extraordinary news.
She had initially been mocking Boris, saying: “Oh Boris, he's fun. He's great, isn't he?
“Bouncing around, sort of going to be the next Prime Minister and all of that. And they never actually, put him...”
But an audience member interrupts her, telling her he had just been appointed to one of the great positions of state. Mrs Eagle asks incredulously “they’ve just made him Foreign Secretary?”
On hearing confirmation of the news, she rolls her eyes, slumps her shoulders and turns her back as the audience bursts into laughter.
The stony-faced ex-shadow business secretary takes 30 seconds to compose herself before carrying on: “OK, we can imagine him (Mr Johnson) on a zip wire between Gibraltar and Spain, can't we? With the Union Jack.
“Let's try and just get to the end of this before we go and go and have a collective, I don't know, not a suicide pact because we're not like that, but dear God.”
This morning Mrs Eagle, who has challenged Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership, explained her reaction: “I couldn't believe that somebody who went round the country telling blatant lies could be rewarded in that way, and I thought immediately of the Hillsborough families because he repeated the slurs about them and then he went up to Merseyside and insulted Merseyside and was forced by Michael Howard to go back up and apologise.
"And then I thought about what he'd said about President Obama, that somehow his Kenyan roots had made him more pro-European.
"I don't think that that's the kind of behaviour of a British Foreign Secretary."
Mr Johnson’s appointment to the Cabinet is the biggest shock of Theresa May’s reshuffle so far.
Despite his high profile, BoJo is known for his gaffes which have left him hanging helplessly from a zip wire and crashing into a Japanese toddler during his time as London Mayor.
The former leadership contender is also facing the awkward prospect of meeting with prominent world figures like Hilary Clinton who he describes: “She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.”
He could also come face to face with Barack Obama before he leaves office. Mr Johnson was criticised for calling the American President “part-Kenyan” during the EU referendum campaign who harboured an “ancestral dislike” for Britain.
Speaking outside his London home last night, BoJo said: “I’m obviously very humbled and excited to be offered this chance.
“I completely agree with Theresa’s sentiments about opportunity, about giving people better life chances.
“Clearly now we have an opportunity to make a great success of our new relationship with Europe and I am very excited to be asked to play a role in that.”
Today his first morning as Foreign Secretary got off to a bad start as he struggled to find his ministerial car.