Boris Johnson shuts down foreign policy 'pub quiz' interview on live TV

Boris Johnson might be the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs but he appears to lack basic pub trivia about world leaders.

The Conservative politician was left momentarily lost for words when asked to name the South Korean President and stumbled for a drawn-out moment when probed about who the French Foreign Minister was.

Appearing on Sky News Murnaghan program, the presenter Dermot Murnaghan questioned the former Mayor of London in the same way that he interviewed Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, in September.

At the time, the Labour politician accused the presenter of “sexism” after she failed to name the French Foreign Minister on live television. “Don’t start pub-quizzing me, Dermot,” Ms Thornberry initially snapped back.

Mr Johnson has now fallen into the same trap on air. After Murnaghan asked him to take a stab at one of the questions Ms Thornberry failed to answer, he appeared to become rather tongue-tied and outrightly refused to take part in the interview.

“We are not getting into a pub quiz about leaders around the world,” Mr Johnson chipped in. “I am going to, with great respect invite you out the pub Dermot so that we can take these conversations further. I have a terrible feeling if I keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more”.

Earlier in the interview, Mr Johnson also stopped for rather too long after being asked who the French foreign minister was. Ruffling his hair and stammering for a moment, he said: “If you want to have a pub quiz Dermot I’ll be very happy to meet you in the pub but the French foreign minister is mon amie Jean-Marc Ayrault, I know him very well.”

His question prompted a fiery debate between the politician and the presenter which ended with her saying she wanted to take the dicussion "off air".