All the ridiculous moments from Boris Johnson's 'shambolic' Peppa Pig business speech - The Mirror

Inspired by a visit to Peppa Pig World, the Prime Minister compared himself to Moses, lost his place, impersonated a car going "broom broom" and talked at length about the cartoon hog

When Boris Johnson headed off to Chequers for the weekend, you might have assumed he was working on today’s big speech to business leaders.

After all, his CBI speech was a crucial chance to calm Tory anger over sleaze, rail and social care.

“I don’t think we’ve got any other meetings,” a spokesman insisted on Friday. But there was one he didn’t mention - a trip to Peppa Pig World.

The Prime Minister, wife Carrie and son Wilfred enjoyed a day out to the Hampshire theme park. And while every parent deserves a break, perhaps this time, Mr Johnson’s time out showed in his speech.

He bumbled his way through, comparing himself to Moses, impersonating a car, lauding himself in the third person, losing his place for 20 seconds - and of course, going on and on about Peppa Pig.

All that overshadowed the announcements, like forcing some new-build homes to include electric car charging points from 2022.

We were there as the PM addressed 150 business leaders in a makeshift marquee at the Port of Tyne, one of several sites rejected by Chancellor Rishi Sunak for a freeport.

He opened by praising the region's exporting credentials, despite exports to the EU falling 11% in the first six months in 2021 because of Brexit.

Business leaders drank posh coffee and ate croissants as they watched the PM ruffle his hair, gesticulate and embark upon a meandering address that covered everything from "colossal" train projects to Lenin.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves branded the speech “shambolic” adding: “No one was laughing, because the joke's not funny anymore.”

TSSA union General Secretary Manuel Cortes said “charlatan” Mr Johnson “appears to be delusional”, adding: “He’s right to raise Peppa Pig in one sense - she would be far more effective in Downing Street.”

North East businessman Richard Swart, said the speech was “catastrophic” telling the Mirror: “We are desperate for statesmanlike behaviour to help us navigate through Covid, Brexit, labour shortages and other challenges we face.”

Here are the 10 most ridiculous moments from the speech.

He lost his place

The speech went off the rails after he lost his place and spent just over 20 seconds rifling through his notes, muttering “forgive me” three times and "blast it".

Business leaders in the tent appeared unsure how to react.

An ITV reporter even asked Mr Johnson "is everything OK?" after the speech, to which he replied: "I think people got the vast majority of the points I wanted to make and I thought it went over well."

He went on a lengthy ramble about Peppa Pig

After regaining his composure, the PM then embarked upon a lengthy diversion about Peppa Pig World - which is almost 6 hours' drive from South Shields - after visiting it yesterday.

He demanded to know why business leaders in the Port of Tyne had not visited the children’s attraction 330 miles away in Hampshire.

He said: "Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World.

"I don’t know if you’ve been to Peppa Pig world, who’s been, hands up anyone who’s been to Peppa Pig World? Not enough."

He added: "I loved it and Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place. It has very safe streets, err… discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems, even if they’re a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig."

He even used it as an excuse to bash civil servants

There was a bizarre moment as Mr Johnson said "no Whitehall civil servant could conceivably have come up with Peppa".

Perhaps because designing children’s TV cartoon characters is not their job - we’ll never know.

Praising the character as an example of British “creativity”, he continued: "Who would have believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer or possibly a 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 China?"

It’s been reported the BBC did not, in fact, reject Peppa Pig. We’ve rung them to check.

He pretended to be a car going ‘broom broom’

The speech was to burnish his green credentials, so of course he spent a fair time talking about how he didn’t used to have any.

The PM recalled trying out a Tesla car, while writing about motoring for GQ magazine, that “expired in the fast lane of the M40”.

He also claimed during his childhood, none of the UK’s grid was powered by wind - saying: “It seemed faddish and ludicrous to imagine we could light and heat our homes with a technology that dated from 9th Century Persia.”

But he claimed technology had improved, adding: “EVs may not burble like sucking doves and they do not have that broom broom brah brah that you like, but they have so much torque that they move off the lights faster than a Ferrari.”

He compared himself to Moses

The Prime Minister compared his 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution to the Commandments brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai.

He said: “We’ve set out a 10 point plan for government leadership - a new decalogue I produced exactly a year ago when I came down from Sinai and I said to my officials, the new 10 commandments - thou shalt develop.

He then listed offshore wind, hydrogen, nuclear power, electric vehicles, green public transport, jet zero, greener buildings and ships, carbon capture, and green finance.

He praised the ‘vision’ of himself, in the third person

The blaze of modesty continued when Mr Johnson praised how Battersea is now “a great funkapolitan hive of cafes, restaurants and hotels and homes - thanks to the vision of the former mayor.”

That former mayor was of course himself, and he glossed over complaints about Battersea’s shiny new-build housing being snapped up by foreign investors, having ‘poor doors’ and the like.

Battersea was a wreck, “good for nothing except the final shootout in gangster movies”, before he took power he said. Coal now supplies less than 2% of our power, and by 2024 it will be down to zero.

He quoted Lenin

"Lenin once said the communist revolution was Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country," Mr Johnson said in his keynote address.

"The coming industrial revolution is green power plus electrification of the whole country. We are electrifying our cars, we are electrifying our rail."

He spun the facts on high speed rail…

Mr Johnson boasted: “Last week we announced three vast new high speed lines, cutting the time from London to Manchester by an hour and creating a new Crossrail of the North.”

What he didn’t mention was that these “three vast new high speed lines” are, in fact, the remnants of much larger plans for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Originally it was hoped the whole of NPR would be a new high-speed track; now only some of it will be. HS2 trains will likewise use existing track east from East Midlands Parkway and won’t even stop in Leeds.

He claimed media coverage pointing out that inconvenient fact was “missing the point”. He added: “You are mad as a railway enthusiast, which I am, to think that you always have to dig huge new trenches through virgin countryside and villages and housing estates in order to do high-speed rail."

… And social care

Boris Johnson insisted his social care funding reforms are "incredibly generous”- despite cutting £900m a year off them for poorer and northern residents.

There will be a care cap of £86,000 on any one person’s lifetime payments - and you’ll get state funding if your assets dip under £100k.

But under a change due to be voted on tonight, people who get state help will crawl towards the cap more slowly. That’s because only their personal payments will count, not any state help they get.

The PM claimed “it is, in fact, more generous than some of the original proposals of Andrew Dilnot because it helps people not just who are in residential care but also people who benefit from domiciliary care as well.”

He added: "Under the existing system nobody gets any support if they have assets of £23,000 or more. Now you get support if you have £100,000 or less, so we are helping people.”

But Sir Andrew said that, while the proposals are more generous than what we have now, the change announced this week is not “progressive” and will leave poorer homeowners with “catastrophic” costs.

And he conveniently forgot his ‘f*** business’ remark

The PM said “I’ve never been anything other than business’s number one fan,” despite privately saying “f*** business” in a 2018 row over Brexit .

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: "The Prime Minister famously said he was going to “f” business - the least he could do is to deliver a decent f-ing speech.”