‘Blast it’: PM bemuses with rambling speech
Johnson ranges from Peppa Pig to strange acronyms for home workers in CBI address
‘There are sound evolutionary reasons why Mother Nature does not like working from home’
THE Prime Minister was asked whether he was OK yesterday, after giving a speech in which he lost his thread, digressed on the merits of Peppa Pig and imitated a revving car.
Boris Johnson muttered “blast it” and asked an audience three times to “forgive me”, as he struggled mid-address to assemble his notes in the right order, prompting a pause of about 30 seconds.
At the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry, he also raised eyebrows by suggesting he had come “down from Mount Sinai” and compared his ten-point plan for a green economy to the Ten Commandments.
Elsewhere, he attempted an impression of a car engine as he extolled the benefits of electric vehicles, remarking that new Teslas “move off the lights faster than a Ferrari”. As the speech went on, the Prime Minister opined about Peppa Pig World, to which he paid a visit with his family at the weekend, sparking bemusement.
He mused on the theme park’s “very safe streets” and “discipline in schools”, took a dimmer view of the “stereotypical” depiction of “daddy pig”, and praised the “pure genius” behind the “Picasso-like hairdryer” portrayal of the characters.
Later, he attempted to shrug off questions about his performance.
Asked by the BBC “is everything OK”, he hit back: “I think people got the vast majority of the points I wanted to make. I thought it went over well.”
Opposition figures leapt on the speech, with Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, branding it “shambolic” and arguing it “shows how unseriously he takes British business”.
Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said the address was a “perfect metaphor for Johnson’s chaotic, incompetent Government”.
Elsewhere in his wide-ranging speech at the Port of Tyne in South Shields, Mr Johnson insisted that “Mother Nature” does not like working from home, as he predicted a rush back to offices. He rejected suggestions that working behaviours have been altered forever by lockdowns and hinted at a humorous reference to people who work from offices only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday being known by the acronym “t---s”.
The intervention dovetails with a fierce debate in the private sector about the degree to which employees should stop working from home.
Mr Johnson said: “I know that there are some people who think that working habits have been remade by the pandemic and that everyone will be working only on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, in an acronym I won’t repeat.
“I have my doubts and it is not just that young people need to be in the office to learn, and to compete, and to pick up social capital.
“There are also sound evolutionary reasons why Mother Nature does not like working from home. So I prophesise that people will come back, they will come to the office and they will come back on the roads and the rail.
“But people also want choice. That is why we must put in the gigabit broadband as we are – which has gone up massively just in the last couple of years from seven per cent when I became Prime Minister to 65 per cent at the beginning of next year.”
Mr Johnson also said the need to “level up” the UK was a “moral mission”.
He defended criticism of last week’s decision to scrap the eastern branch of HS2, branding the Integrated Rail Plan “transformatory” and a “fantastic thing”.
Speaking at a CBI event in Birmingham later in the day, Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted to work with business to “remake” Britain.
He told the audience that Labour was not planning a “rematch on Brexit” and ruled out rejoining the EU.
The Leader of the Opposition also said he would make it his “mission” to improve skills for young people entering the workplace for the first time.
Sir Keir announced he was appointing a new council of skills advisers, including Lord Blunkett, the former education secretary.
He said: “It has long been my view that we don’t value vocational and technical skills nearly enough.”
The slogan for the CBI’S annual conference is the deliberately uncontentious “Seize the Moment”, though it is not clear which moment is to be seized. Is it the post-covid recovery, or the opportunities offered by Brexit, or the new green tech agenda? Boris Johnson, speaking in South Shields yesterday, was not entirely sure himself.
The Prime Minister was at his most discursive, conjuring up images of Peppa Pig World, Aztecs, Moses, Lenin and Picasso among others. It was characteristically colourful, even if he lost his way having eschewed the teleprompters. Mr Johnson was using Peppa Pig as an example of how a seemingly unprepossessing idea can become a global commercial success. His political appeal derives from his ability to connect with ordinary people by using parallels they can understand. But it all depends on the audience and the CBI might not have been the best forum for such a speech even if it was partly aimed at voters beyond.
The speech was described as “rambling” yet his demotic allusions often get closer to the heart of an issue than the more orthodox disposition offered a few hours later by Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader. He chose a more ponderous approach, talking up a proposed new contractual relationship between business and Labour while emphasising the need for improved productivity and a “radical” approach that would not alienate industry as his party had done in the past.
But a focus on rhetoric obscures the different political instincts. Sir Keir’s are classically interventionist, with talk of industrial strategies, economic plans and a central role for the state. Mr Johnson said less regulation, less tax and less governmental interference were the true drivers of growth. We agree with this analysis and yet struggle to see it reflected in the Government’s policies. Business and personal taxes are going up, the economic advantages of free ports are being watered down and Mr Johnson announced yet more green regulation, with laws requiring the installation of electric vehicle charge points from next year.
This inconsistency is beginning to unsettle the Tory party, as Lord Frost intimated in his speech to the Centre for Policy Studies last night. It hardly amounts to the strategy for economic growth that the country needs. The moment has yet to be seized.