‘Peppa Pig World my kind of place’: Boris
PM praises ‘safe streets and mass transit systems’ in attraction visit
THE prime minister has implored business leaders to visit a Hampshire attraction based around a cartoon pig, praising its ‘safe streets’ and ‘discipline in schools’ during a bizarre speech to the Confederation of British Industry.
Boris Johnson used his speech to business leaders gathered in Newcastle to tell them about his weekend visit to Peppa Pig World, in Paultons Park, Romsey.
The prime minister described Peppa Pig as ‘pure genius’, despite resembling a ‘Picasso-like hairdryer’, with the show becoming a £6billion global success story after its creation by a London-based studio in 2004.
Mr Johnson, who has six children including a oneyear-old boy, said: ‘Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World.
‘I was a bit hazy what I would find at Peppa Pig World – but I loved it.
‘Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place.’
Peppa Pig World features nine rides and the opportunity for children – and prime ministers – to be photographed with Peppa Pig and her family.
Mr Johnson added: ‘It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, a heavy emphasis in new mass transit systems, I noticed, even if they are a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.’
Johnson asked the audience of business executives who had been to the theme park, saying he was ‘surprised you haven’t been there’ to those executives who had not visited the park.
Praising the private sector, Mr Johnson said ‘no Whitehall civil servant could conceivably have come up with Peppa’.
He added: ‘Who would have believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer or possibly a Picassolike hairdryer, a pig that was rejected by the BBC, would now be exported to 180 countries with theme parks both in America and China?’
Several Peppa Pig resorts and theme parks are planned across the globe, including in Shanghai.
The prime minister also set out to business leaders his plan for a ‘green industrial revolution’, powered by sustainable energy and its infrastructure.