UK: Johnson embarrasses himself with ridiculous speech

The British Prime Minister is tangled up between cartoon characters and imitation car noises, and slowly some in the country are wondering: does he still have all his senses together?

Boris Johnson is known for his shirt-sleeved speeches and apparently assumes that his audience can best follow him when he is childlike, or rather, childishly, when he meets him.

In the United Nations plenary session in September, international people in particular with unusual headgear were amazed in disbelief and screwed their interpreter buttons in their ears when the British Prime Minister spoke about Kermit, the green frog, in his speech on environmental protection – who would falsely claim that it was not so easy to be green.

Of cartoon characters and leisure pigs

Yesterday Johnson was back in top form, and the delegates of the CBI industry association laughed audibly insecure when the Prime Minister talked about another cartoon character, namely the visit to the Peppa Pig Kinderland – known to the British as Peppa Pig: “Hands up who of You’ve already been to the theme park? Not enough, it seems to me. ”

Johnson continued, citing British creativity, it was really amazing that a pig that looked like a Picasso-designed hair dryer was successfully exported to 180 countries, with theme parks in the US and China. In addition to comic characters, Johnson also used historical references in his speech, alluding to the communist revolutionary leader Lenin and comparing himself to Moses.

He raved about his test drives in fast cars as a journalist for the motor press and on out loud how electric cars don’t sound. In between, the prime minister lost the thread for a few seconds and mumbled apologies for his text.

“Are you all right?”

A journalist asked with sympathy: Are you all right? The Daily Telegraph, for which Johnson previously wrote, sprang to the Prime Minister’s side politely, and columnist Quentin Letts could still see the performance: “It was a very unusual approach. The Prime Minister lost his thread, he talked long and hard about an excursion with his Son Wilfred to Peppa Pig Land. It was ridiculous and a farce, but it got attention. I liked it. “

But the overwhelming response from the press was devastating. “Business representatives had to follow the delusional ramblings of an idiot,” commented the Guardian. The Times criticized in its editorial that the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, had given the appropriate speech at the economic summit, while Johnson ranted about the Peppa Pig Park.

And the BBC’s political correspondent, Nick Watt, stated on the radio: “Conservative MPs from all sides of the party have the uneasy feeling that Boris Johnson is no longer in control of things.”

Is Johnson Losing Control?

A vote on a controversial social reform, which the conservatives only narrowly won yesterday despite a large majority in parliament, showed that the prime minister could be losing control. Dozens of group members abstained. And there is currently no policy area in sight with which Johnson could score again.

Due to the consequences of Brexit and the corona pandemic, there is no economic recovery and due to delivery bottlenecks, a satisfactory Christmas is in danger. More migrants are entering the country illegally via the English Channel than ever before.

And then there are the various felt and corruption scandals in which the Tories got themselves entangled. BBC correspondent Nick Watt anonymously quotes high-ranking politicians who compare Johnson to the head of government in the political drama series “House of Cards”: he looks in the mirror and wonders: has the magic gone?