Cannibals ate my uncle?! Joe Biden's latest gaffe will hopefully be one of his last before US presidential election – Scotsman comment

US President Joe Biden’s claim that cannibals on Papua New Guinea ate his uncle during the Second World War turns out not to be true

Joe Biden and Donald Trump make so many gaffes that Forbes magazine decided to set up a tracker. But, then, to an extent, such blunders show politicians are as human as the rest of us, while overly slick, always-on-message, soundbite-spouting politicians end up sounding like robots.

However, on reflection, Biden would perhaps have preferred to have avoided causing a rather unnecessary diplomatic incident with Papua New Guinea by claiming his uncle had been eaten by cannibals. Firstly, because Army Air Corps aviator Ambrose Finnegan was actually killed after crashing into the Pacific near Papua New Guinea. And secondly, because while the people there may have had some unusual funeral rites, they weren’t actually cannibals in the sense that they ate other people for food.

No pressure, Joe, but there is rather a lot riding on November’s election, so please, if you’d be so kind, do your very best to dial down the gaffe count. If Trump returns as the supposed ‘leader of the free world’, he may eat democracy for breakfast, followed by human rights for lunch, and freedom for supper.

Get our weekly opinion newsletter for expert analysis from The Scotsman’s team of columnists