Many people were shocked that Theresa May appointed Boris Johnson as her Foreign Secretary.

He strongly divides opinion and his enemies gleefully predicted that the former Daily Telegraph journalist was too much of a buffoon to succeed in the job.

However, although it is still very early days, these doubters have been proved wrong about his ability to perform on a day-to-day basis.

Oxford-educated Mr Johnson (pictured) speaks near-perfect French, was brought up in Brussels, is fluent in the Classics, is a citizen of the world and commands vast intellectual resources

The truth is that Mr Johnson is rated highly by his officials. They are impressed by the speed at which he masters a brief. They vastly prefer him to his dull, cautious, unimaginative predecessor, Philip Hammond.

Admittedly there have been lively moments. For example, one foreign minister of a major European country told friends after his first meeting with his British counterpart that he had never before come across any foreign minister who used the word ‘bull***t’.

He also observed that some of Mr Johnson’s staff were crouched behind him with their head in their hands, fearing he might say something undiplomatic.

But Oxford-educated Mr Johnson speaks near-perfect French, was brought up in Brussels, is fluent in the Classics, is a citizen of the world and commands vast intellectual resources. I would go so far as to say he is the most brilliant, learned and well-read British Foreign Secretary since Lord Curzon occupied the post just after World War I.

However, Mr Johnson has one serious flaw, and that is inconsistency.

I am not merely thinking of the notorious episode, on the eve of announcing whether he would campaign for Remain or Leave in the EU referendum, when he prepared two different articles, arguing completely opposite opinions, before publishing one under the headline: ‘There is only one way to get the change we want — Vote Go.’

Much more important is his change of mind on the two gravest and most chilling issues of our time: the Syrian civil war and the emerging new cold war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

As Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson is gung-ho for confrontation. He has called on crowds to protest outside the Russian Embassy in London against the Kremlin’s bombing of Aleppo. He gleefully accuses Mr Putin of war crimes.

The truth is that he is every bit as avid a warmonger as Tony Blair (Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sierra Leone etc) and David Cameron (Iraq and Libya) — and that is saying a very great deal.

But Mr Johnson’s rampant warmongering is baffling to anyone who followed his career before taking charge at the Foreign Office.

Shortly before his unexpected appointment in July, he outlined his position on Russia and Syria in a series of articles for the Daily Telegraph. The message could not have been clearer.

Let’s start with Russia. Mr Johnson wanted Britain to do a deal with President Putin. He spoke of the need ‘to set aside our Cold War mindset’. And he welcomed the way that Russian bombers were joining the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad by attacking militant jihadists.

He wrote of a visit he had made to Paris last December where he noticed newspaper billboards plastered with photos of the man he affectionately called ‘Vlad’. Mr Johnson explained to Telegraph readers that ‘many French people think that the time has come to do a deal with their new friends the Russians — and I think that they are broadly right’.

Admittedly, he cautioned that he was ‘no particular fan of Vlad’ and accused him of being responsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner in Eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 on board.

He noted that Mr Putin ‘is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet’. Mr Johnson continued: ‘Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House-Elf, he’s a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.’

But this was all journalistic bombast. At heart, Mr Johnson considered that Mr Putin was a man with whom Britain should do business, adding: ‘We cannot afford to be picky about our allies.’ Our future Foreign Secretary had similar feelings about the Syrian leader.

Again, Mr Johnson was at pains to stress he was no admirer, saying: ‘Assad is a monster, a dictator. He barrel-bombs his own people. His jails are full of tortured opponents.’ But he also praised him for waging war against the murderous zealots of Islamic State.

As Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson is gung-ho for confrontation. He has called on crowds to protest outside the Russian Embassy in London against the Kremlin’s bombing of Aleppo

So why Boris’s U-turn? How has he changed his mind in the space of less than six months from being a foreign policy pragmatist in the tradition of Douglas Hurd (who was Foreign Secretary under Mrs Thatcher and John Major) to an advocate of military confrontation in the mould of Tony Blair?

It’s not as if the pattern of world events has changed. Messrs Putin and Assad are both following the same policies. They are as ruthless and brutal today as they were six months ago. But Mr Johnson has changed — having been ‘reprogrammed’ by Foreign Office mandarins to conform to their orthodoxy rather than to stay true to his beliefs.

To understand why this has happened, it is important to realise that, for many years, there has been a rigid Foreign Office mindset about world affairs.

In a nutshell, the FO believes Britain should be America’s poodle.

Tony Blair pathetically followed this brief to the letter — taking orders from the White House. Whatever George W. Bush wanted, Tony Blair did. Hence the calamity of the Iraq war.

AND it was the same with David Cameron and Barack Obama. Now that it is widely expected Hillary Clinton will be the next U.S. President, the FO is busy aligning itself with her world view.

Mrs Clinton has repeatedly made clear she is set on confrontation with Russia. So, as night follows day, the FO is preparing to follow suit.

I believe Mrs Clinton’s bellicose approach is very foolish and that Boris Johnson’s wisest course would be to divert her from what would be a very dangerous path.

Of course, Messrs Putin and Assad have committed heinous acts. But horrible as these have been, at least they were done to try to halt the evil Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Once, the Foreign Office used to go along with realpolitik. Let’s hope that under Mr Johnson’s leadership, it re-adopts this policy, which should help stop us lurching towards yet another war.

During her six years as Home Secretary, Theresa May (pictured) won a magnificent reputation

During her six years as Home Secretary, Theresa May won a magnificent reputation as a politician who stood up for ordinary people and wasn’t afraid to take on vested interests.

Her bravest decision was to order an investigation into the shocking police cover-up after the Hillsborough football stadium tragedy.

Now, Mrs May’s successor as Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, must make an equally important decision on whether to launch an inquiry into alleged police brutality during the so-called ‘Battle of Orgreave’ — when hundreds of officers clashed with protesters during the 1984 miners’ strike.

There are deeply troubling suggestions that South Yorkshire Police may have perverted the course of justice by lying about the threat of violence against its officers.

Many people argue that Ms Rudd should not reopen old wounds. That is understandable, but I believe that she must now follow Mrs May’s example — and make sure that justice is done in Orgreave as it was done over Hillsborough.

When Mrs May became Prime Minister in July, she said that she would ‘stand up for all the British people’ — and that, of course, includes those men who claim that they suffered a gross injustice more than 30 years ago.

Today, Spain will get a new prime minister after ten rudderless months without a government. Yet during that period, unemployment has fallen and the economy has grown. Perhaps there is a lesson here for the rest of us.

UKIP has refused to field a candidate for the Richmond Park by-election after MP Zac Goldsmith (pictured) quit over plans to expand Heathrow