Johnson's Potemkin government

[Denzil_DC]

2. There are certainly mindboggling horrors enough in the new cabinet.

I'll try my best to keep it light, though (there's a lot more to say about Patel, for instance, who five years later sort of, fudgily, backtracked from her support of capital punishment, including the fact she was forced to leave her last government post in disgrace after effectively freelancing her own covert foreign policy in the Middle East; this without mentioning her awful stances on LGBT rights and civil liberties in general).

Raab, who as Brexit Secretary didn't realize how important Dover-Calais was as a UK trade route, seems to have an enduring problem with maritime geography:

Link to tweet

Real_JasonJHunter
@JJHTweets

When your new Foreign Secretary appears to think the Red Sea has something to do with the Irish Backstop.... where is the facepalm emoji when it's so desperately needed?

He probably confused it with the Red Hand of Ulster. He'd also never read the full Good Friday Agreement (this lack seemed to be a necessary qualification for all those May appointed to oversee Northern Ireland).

As Brexit Secretary, he was involved in negotiating the draft Withdrawal Agreement, then resigned because he opposed it as "a betrayal of public trust".

Perhaps more relevant to his new role, he opposed the government taking any sort of hard line against the Saudi regime over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi because of the risk to British jobs (mainly in the arms trade).

He is a black belt in karate, though, which may come in handy during negotiations.