Johnson mocks Sturgeon and Salmond in conference speech
Boris Johnson used his first Tory conference speech as Prime Minister not to outline exciting new policies and Brexit proposals, but instead to deliver a series of jokes.
One of the larger laughs from the Conservative faithful in Manchester yesterday was one he rehearsed before DUP activists a night earlier.
Amid warnings over his use of language, Mr Johnson told the convention of a “communist cosmonaut” who needed coaxing into a satellite mission.
He did not need naming for the audience to understand the joke at that point, but the Prime Minister would revisit the Labour leader at the close of his speech.
Mr Johnson told the crowd his slogan of the need to “get Brexit done”, to cut taxes and “figuratively, if not literally, let us send Jeremy Corbyn into orbit where he belongs”.
Fish gags about Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond were also on the menu, so too was one about Commons Speaker John Bercow dining on testicles.
The PM said he wanted to “take back control” of the fisheries of Scotland, and added: “It is one of the many bizarre features of the SNP that in spite of being called names like Salmond and Sturgeon they are committed to handing back control of those fish to the EU.”
The crowd took the bait again when he said: “We want to turbo-charge the Scottish fishing sector, they would allow Brussels to charge for our turbot.”
Mr Johnson also raised the worrying prospect of a British political system “on the brink”.
“If Parliament were a laptop, then the screen would be showing, I’m afraid, the pizza wheel of doom,” he joked.
“If it was a school then Ofsted would shut it down,” he continued.
“If Parliament were a reality TV show then the whole lot of us, I’m afraid, would have been voted out of the jungle by now.
“But at least we would have the consolation of a speaker being forced to eat a kangaroo testicle.”
The PM called the opposition “chlorinated chickens”, in a reference to their refusal to grant him an election.