Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, known to family and friends as “Al”, is the only politician in Britain who has weaponised the political gaffe. His latest – looking at the questions he was due to be asked in his interview with Robert Peston – hasn’t even been portrayed as a blunder. Instead, it’s another brilliant Boris jape: he was “stealing and copying my homework”, as Peston jokily tweeted after the interview.

This indulgence of the Boris character as a misbehaving Eton schoolboy rather than foreign secretary is dangerous; it means that accountability of a government minister becomes secondary to getting a kick out of politics as a kind of farcical reality show: the Trumpification of Westminster.

Robert Peston (@Peston) Here 's Boris stealing and copying my homework (ie reading questions I planned for him, while I interviewed @NSoames & @jessphillips). pic.twitter.com/xe1KXgMgag

Johnson’s missteps are well-documented. From his telephone call with convicted fraudster Darius Guppy discussing plans to carry out an assault on a meddling investigative journalist, to claiming that Barack Obama was intervening in the Brexit referendum on account of his “part-Kenyan ancestry”, to referring to black people as “piccaninnies”, to his recent blunder of extolling the virtues of ending tariffs on whisky in a Sikh temple, Johnson’s odiousness knows no bounds. And yet, not only able to deflect criticism with his bumbling and fumbling, his controversies have become a sizeable chunk of his appeal.

When Labour ministers make mistakes, the press is quick to pounce. Since her error-laden interview on LBC a few weeks ago, Diane Abbott has been subject to an enormous amount of both fair criticism, and more sinister mockery. The media machine went into overdrive to signal that Abbott’s floundering was proof that Labour is unfit for government. On Peston on Sunday, after looking at the notes for his interview, Johnson made the incorrect claim that Theresa May had promised to give the NHS an extra £350m a week. She hadn’t – it was a total fabrication – an “inverted pyramid of piffle”, as Johnson himself might put it.

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This episode ought to go down as a real stinker. If the interviewee had been a Labour minister, it would be plastered over campaign materials and used as evidence that the opposition are not ready to form a government. For Johnson, it’s a victory. “‘Rotter’ Boris Johnson got caught sneaking a look at Robert Peston’s notes” is the headline the Mirror ran with. His “tomfoolery” is a bit of light relief in a tedious election – we’re supposed to revel in Johnson’s antics. But we shouldn’t – he isn’t running to be host of Have I Got News For You, he’s putting himself forward to oversee international diplomacy. Getting into an argument with an Italian minister about prosecco might be mildly amusing – but it also has the potential to further sour our relationships with European countries during Brexit negotiations. Johnson’s gaffes are an obstacle to, well, strong and stable government.

So, I have a few requests to make to anyone who writes about politics: first, don’t refer to him as “Boris”. He isn’t your chum, and if he were, you’d be calling him “Al”. Second, don’t write about Johnson as though he’s a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother – he’s a politician, and should be scrutinised as such. Finally, don’t make the mistake of thinking that “Boris” isn’t a contrived character deployed for maximum political gain. As Johnson says in an interview with documentary film-maker Michael Cockerell: “I certainly think that as a general tactic in life, it is often useful to give the slight impression that you’re deliberately pretending not to know what is going on.” Here’s the thing: the fact that Boris Johnson is foreign secretary is certainly a joke, and sometimes it’s a funny joke, but the butt of the joke isn’t Johnson, it’s the electorate.