Global Gobbiness

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Words can have consequences. Sometimes, that’s because they’re taken seriously; at other times it’s because they provide people with an excuse to do or say what they wanted to do or say anyway. The Foreign Secretary’s words this week fall into the latter category. Linking the threat of nuclear escalation to something she said is absolutely unjustified; and the Kremlin must surely know as well as most of us do that it is ludicrous to take anything she says seriously. Even if it’s only about cheese. She has proved herself to be ‘geographically challenged’ in distinguishing between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea (both starting with ‘B’ and both being in Europe somewhere doesn’t make them the same thing) and under-briefed, having declared that the UK will never accept Russian sovereignty over parts of, um, Russia. And this week, she had to be publicly corrected by her boss over her suggestion that the government would support anyone choosing to go and fight in Ukraine, despite the little matter of that being illegal under UK law.

But words do have consequences, whether we like it or not. And having a gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary at a time of major international crisis is a really, really bad idea. As bad as having a clown for a PM and a Home Secretary lacking in any sense of human empathy. She cannot be held responsible for the way her words are interpreted or used – but she can be, and is, responsible for saying them. Opening the mouth before the brain is engaged is unhelpful in most situations; it’s potentially disastrous in the current one.