Boris Johnson praises Peppa Pig World and then loses place during bizarre speech to the CBI as Labour tear into PM for not caring about British business
Boris Johnson has praised Peppa Pig World during a bizarre CBI speech that also saw him lose his place.
The Prime Minister was briefly lost for words yesterday morning and shuffled through his notes for almost half a minute during an address to the Confederation of British Industry.
Mr Johnson then shocked business leaders by talking about a visit to a Peppa Pig theme park. He said: “Forgive me, forgive me... oh blast it.
“Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World.
“I love it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place: it has very safe streets, discipline in schools.
“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?”
During a long and incoherent speech, Mr Johnson also quoted Lenin and referred to himself as Moses.
Later he impersonated an accelerating car saying: “Broom broom brah brah!”
Mr Johnson also defended his Government’s soaring taxes by insisting the Chancellor Rishi Sunak wanted to cut the burden for businesses but the Government had to be “prudent”.
He explained: “On corporation tax, on general tax for business – don’t forget, we’re still the lowest in the G7. I mentioned the 125 per cent super deduction which is proving very attractive.
“If you ask me ‘does the Chancellor want to go further and reduce burdens on taxpayers and business’, yes, of course he does.
“But don’t forget that we’ve just been through a pandemic where we had to look after people to the tune of £407 billion and that was a big, big fiscal event and extremely tough for the taxpayer.
“You’ve got to be prudent and you’ve got to manage things sensibly.
“We will get to relieving more of the burdens of taxation but you’ve got to do it in a reasonable and prudent way.”
The Prime Minister also insisted his scaled-back plans for railway investment would still be “transformatory”.
He said: “I must say that I thought, as a lesson in what happens when you tell the British people we’re investing £96 billion in the biggest railway programme for 100 years, some of the coverage was missing the point, let me put it that way. So, Birmingham to Newcastle
is 40 minutes quicker under the IRP; from Newcastle to London will have 20 minutes shaved off because of the upgrades to the East Coast Mainline. So, Northern Powerhouse Rail will have about 40 miles of new high speed line from Warrington to Marsden but they can speed up the rest by electrification and other improvements. And that’s how you get the massive gains that are going to come.”
Rachel Reeves MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor accused the Prime Minister of not caring about British business.
She said: "Labour believes that government and business should work hand in hand to boost our recovery, grow our economy, and create prosperity across every part of the UK.
"The Prime Minister's shambolic speech today not only shows how unseriously he takes British business, but also how his government lacks any plan for growth or to propel our enterprising nations forward.
“No one was laughing, because the joke's not funny anymore."
Following the speech Mr Johnson was asked: “Is everything OK?”
He told reporters at ITV: “I think that people got the vast majority of the points I wanted to make and I thought it went over well.”
But the Labour Party mocked Mr Johnson online, saying “the joke’s not funny any more”, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Businesses are crying out for clarity. Instead, all they got was Boris Johnson rambling on about Peppa Pig.”