This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Boris Johnson will be subjected to a Boris-style attack on Tuesday from the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson, who will describe the foreign secretary as a “cheese-headed fopdoodle”.

The description follows Johnson’s description of Jeremy Corbyn as a “mutton-headed old mugwump” in his first intervention of the election campaign.

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In a speech to the shopworkers’ union Usdaw’s annual delegate meeting in Blackpool, Watson will say: “Boris Johnson is a caggie-handed cheese-headed fopdoodle with a talent for slummocking about.”

A fopdoodle is defined online as a stupid or insignificant fellow, a fool or a simpleton. Cheese-head, confusingly, is a name for a type of screw with a raised cylindrical head, while a slummock is an untidy or slovenly person.

Watson will attack Johnson’s record as foreign secretary, characterising him as ineffective and lightweight. “When we require diplomacy, Boris sows discord. At a time when we need a serious-minded national representative to deal skilfully with some of the most complex problems our country faces, Johnson falls back on bluster and bombast,” he will say.

Johnson used a combination of blunt and characteristically idiosyncratic language to ridicule Corbyn’s leadership credentials last week.

He said the electorate should not be fooled by what he described as Corbyn’s “meandering and nonsensical questions”, adding: “They say to themselves: he may be a mutton-headed old mugwump, but he is probably harmless. It is absolutely vital for Britain’s security that we have the strong, stable and decisive leadership of Theresa May.”

The term “mugwump” was first used by Native Americans to describe a war leader, which was taken up in the 1880s to describe members of the US Republican party who switched allegiance to support the Democrats.

