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Britain’s Boris Johnson faces backlash over his leadership

23 November 2021 20:17 (UTC +04:00)

You know a prime minister has caused a stir when a journalist has to ask: “Is everything OK?”, APA reports citing CNBC.

But that’s exactly what happened on Monday after U.K. leader Boris Johnson gave a speech to the U.K.’s biggest industry lobby, the CBI.

What prompted an ITV News journalist to ask Johnson how he was doing was a rambling and at times disorganized speech delivered by the prime minister in which he awkwardly rifled through his notes after appearing to lose his way mid-speech, before then going off on a tangent about the virtues of Peppa Pig World.

Johnson told business leaders at the Confederation of British Industry conference that he had been to the Peppa Pig theme park, which is based on the globally successful children’s TV show, and that it was “very much my kind of place.”

A transcription of the speech Johnson delivered, released by Downing Street on Tuesday, showed that the prime minister was trying to illustrate that the success of Peppa Pig, a British creation that has gone on to be world famous, was an example of “the inventive power of British business.”

“I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World. Hands up if you’ve been to Peppa Pig World?” Johnson asked the audience, noting at their response that it was “not enough.”

“I was a bit hazy about what I would find at Peppa Pig World, but I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place. It had very safe streets. Discipline in schools. Heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems, I noticed. Even if they are a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig,” he said, to laughs from the audience.

“But the real lesson for me about going to Peppa Pig World was about the power of U.K. creativity. Who would have believed, Tony, that a pig that looks like a hairdryer, or possibly a sort of Picasso-like hairdryer, A pig that was rejected by the BBC, would now be exported to 180 countries. With theme parks both in America and in China as well as in the New Forest,” Johnson said, noting that the business was worth at least £6 billion ($8 billion) to the U.K.

“I think that it is pure genius, don’t you? No government in the world, no Whitehall civil servant in the world, could conceivably have come up with Peppa,” Johnson said.

The British prime minister is well-known for his often eccentric wit and, some would say, fondness for a publicity stunt — Johnson dangling from a zip wire during the 2012 London Olympics being one unforgettable example.

But the tangent on Peppa Pig, coupled with losing his notes, led to both a bemused and scathing reaction in the British media and political circles.