It appears Turkey’s President Erdogan hasn’t quite managed to bury the hatchet with Boris Johnson, after awkward footage emerged yesterday of Biden having to grab the PM’s arm after Erdogan made a joke at his expense. After the inaudible banter between Biden and Erdogan, Boris began pointing a finger at Recep before Biden reportedly clarified “this is a joke, a joke, calm down Boris”. Boris repeats the phrase “Çok guzel”, either Turkish for “very good” or an instruction to Erdogan. Clearly the Turkish president hasn’t forgotten Boris’s old penmanship for the Spectator: “There was a young fellow from Ankara, Who was a terrific wankerer. Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didn’t even stop to thankera.”
Ursula von der Leyen has claimed her embarrassment during her recent visit to Turkey – when she was left without a chair in an on-camera meeting with Erdoğan – was due to sexism; contrary to Turkey’s subsequent claim the EU was responsible, saying “the seating arrangements were made in line with the EU suggestion. Period.” Erdoğan being disrespectful, or the EU being incompetent administrators? It’s a tough call to say who’s in the right…
Theresa May’s snap election has caused the Guardianista class to lose their minds. Martin Kettle writes that “Theresa May in Downing Street sounded like Turkey’s authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan”. This is just bonkers. Erdogan is an Islamist autocrat who rules under a state of emergency, jailing political opponents, arresting journalists, controlling the airwaves, censoring social media and passing a law which could see him stay in power until 2029. Theresa May has called an election.
Theresa May is a disgrace-she called an Election because she rejects the idea of an Opposition in our democracy.We are not some dictatorship
— Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna) April 19, 2017
This tweet from Chuka Umunna is even more ridiculous. In the space of 20 words Chuka suggests May is behaving like a dictator because “she called an election”. Funny kind of dictator. It is just an election, chill out lefties…
Last night several major Twitter accounts posted tweets showing a swastika symbol and the words “Nazi Germany” and “Nazi Holland” written in Turkish. Some accounts had their header image changed to the Turkish flag in what seems to be a mass hack by supporters of the Turkish autocrat Erdogan. Affected accounts include Forbes, Amnesty International, the European Parliament, Justin Bieber, Dortmund football club, the UK Department of Health and EyeSpy.MP. It seems the hack happened via a third-party app – possibly Twitter Counter – rather than the accounts themselves being compromised. Twitter Counter claimed in November that they had secured their accounts after a hack…
