A RAGING Boris Johnson once claimed he would punch “lickspittle” Emmanuel Macron’s lights out during an angry tirade in No 10, his former spin doctor has claimed.
The former prime minister reportedly threatened an “orgy of frog bashing” after the French President was critical of Johnson’s handling of the Ukrainian refugee crisis.
Guto Harri, who was the then-PM’s director of communications said he described Macron as a “four-letter word that begins with C, a weirdo and Putin’s lickspittle”.
Speaking on his podcast Unprecedented, the former aide revealed Johnson became angry after the French President’s criticism of his response to the desperate people wanting to leave Ukraine was leaked to the British press.
Harri said: “Much as Boris is not prone to getting really cross, nor using particularly strong language, this was one where he really flipped at our morning meeting.
“He just launched into a violent attack on Emmanuel Macron. Basically, saying ‘he’s a four-letter word that begins with C, he’s a weirdo, he’s Putin’s lickspittle.
“‘We need to go studs up on this one… We need an orgy of frog bashing. I’m going to have to punch his lights out’.”
Harri added that the two leaders were later able to patch up their differences before a G7 summit just a few weeks later.
He also recounted the night that Putin invaded Ukraine and Johnson spoke to Volodymyr Zelenskyy around 4am.
“He was anxious, but very calm, considering what was underway. It was harrowing, it was haunting.
“He brought it alive to all of us. It was massively sobering. We really could not believe that this was seriously underway”, Harri said.
“A superpower advancing on a neighbour who had done nothing to provoke it. Boris could not have been clearer that we were there to help the Ukraine in whichever way we possibly could, using whatever we could possibly deploy within reason.”
