The story emerged in 2016 after Mr Johnson’s 2015 visit to Iraq. He went there to visit Kurdish troops being trained by British forces, but the trip would be remembered for very different reasons. The Financial Times reported, via Freedom of Information requests, that Mr Johnson had racked up a bill for “costs related to alcohol”, for which the Foreign Office had to chase up with City Hall.

His office was that these would have to be settled in cash before he left, according to emails between the then Mayor of London’s team.

A spokesperson for the Mayor said at the time: “The mayor had always intended to settle what was a private drinks bill but an administrative oversight meant that the bill was not settled on his departure.

“The FCO [Foreign Office] brought this to the attention of the mayor’s office soon afterwards and the Mayor personally paid the bill immediately.”

Financial issues were not the only headache for Mr Johnson’s team. He also unexpectedly tried to drive a sports car out a showroom in Erbil, Iraq.

Asked if he would like to sit in the car, the Mayor obliged before suddenly accelerating into the car park of the showroom, the Financial Times reported

In one email to the Foreign Office in London and the British embassy in Baghdad, Mr Johnson was said to have “got behind the wheel in the showroom, drove out of the door, and on to the driveway, quick action by his PPO and me ensured he did NOT drive off.”

In another email, a Foreign Office official reveals Number 10 initially tried to block Mr Johnson from visiting British troops training local forces in Kurdistan.

Downing Street subsequently allowed for this as long as the trip was “done in an appropriately sombre manner”.

When Johnson arrived for the visit, he demanded access to the “frontline”, rather than just a training camp for local Peshmerga forces.

This provoked a UK official organising the visit to write an urgent email to the Foreign Office seeking to refuse the request.

Angus McKee, the consul general in northern Iraq, wrote: “The visiting mayor would like to visit the ‘frontline’. I explained this was not possible, we never went, etc. He is not satisfied.

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“Can you confirm there is no viable trip to the frontline in the proximity of Erbil? And that Edward Oakden [then a Foreign Office director] has zero appetite for signing off [permission] that gets the mayor to the front.”

The message came back from the Foreign Office said there was “zero appetite” to allow for the trip.

Mr Johnson’s office claimed after the trip that visits abroad were aimed at driving investment for London and for British business and have delivered substantial results for London and for UK plc”.

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