Boris Johnson may have disgraced himself in front of the CBI this week, but we all have our off-days. While the symbolism of an embattled Prime Minister losing his place is irresistible, the fact is that any speech can go wrong.
Remember Theresa May’s coughing fit in 2017? Unlike her time in office, it went on-and-on. And if that wasn’t enough she was also interrupted by a protester and by a piece of the set falling down.
Yet while May’s mishaps weren’t her fault, the same can’t be said for Boris on Monday. His bizarre digression on the merits of Peppa Pig was the most unforced of unforced errors. So was his impression of a rumbling car engine (“arum arum araaaaaagh” — according to the official transcript). Judging the mood of an audience isn’t always easy, but a PM ought to know the difference between a gathering of business people and a kindergarten class.
The first job of every speechwriter — and giver — is to rise to the occasion. Boris Johnson failed on this basic requirement. At a time of profound economic uncertainty, what business leaders need to hear is a message of reassurance — not a sequence of rambling asides and silly noises.
But what should really worry the PM’s colleagues is that this isn’t the first time. Back in September, Johnson gave a speech to the UN General Assembly on climate change. As the curtain raiser for the COP26 conference an appropriately serious tone was required — plus a dash of inspiration. Instead, what we got was an exercise in glibness. The only bit that stood out — and garnered all the headlines — was a cheesy reference to Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.
Another sow’s ear of a speech was his keynote on levelling-up back in July. This had been billed as a major statement on the Government’s flagship economic policy. In the event, it sunk without trace. Not only was there no new content, the PM’s delivery was all over the place.
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SubscribeIf you think COP26 was about saving the world, I have a bridge for sale!
and hopefully his leaving COP26 was evidence of his cynicism about the whole thing (especially in a private jet! if he was really virtue signalling, he’d have hitch hiked)
Of course, if Boris declared his intention to hitch hike, a stretch limo would miraculously stop for him within 30 seconds of him thumbing.
Dominic Cummings was actually Boris Johnson’s “Willie”. It is noticeable that when Dominic Cummings was in charge Johnson appeared strong and decisive, like when he withdrew the Whip from about twenty five Remoaner rebels before the election. Once Cummings left he was all at sea, and increasingly under the thumb of Nut Nuts.
That was a stroke of genius. I’ve always thought Dominic Cummings came up with that idea. Too clever for Boris.
I might have agreed on Alok but the crying thing lost him all credibility.
On the contrary the emotion was key. Until we engage with the escalating climate and ecological collapse that now threatens to engulf us, we shall fail to save ourselves. COVID is a symptom of ecological collapse – we can expect more pandemics and far worse unless we change tack dramatically and embrace a deliberate dismantling and downsizing exercise. Ecological overshoot – Wikipedia
Perhaps you should read a precis of ‘Viral’ by Matt Ridley. Covid is most definitely not a symptom of ecological collapse.
Covid is the vaccine (produced by Gaia): we are the virus! It was a hell of a million years but it’s over.. looks like the dinosaurs will have outlived us by a factor of 100x: maybe they weren’t so pea-brained after all? Humans are far too greedy to save themseves and the greediest (politicians) are the least likely of all of us to even give it a fair go! Asking politicians to look 30-50 years ahead is like asking a Corona virus to have regard for humans’ right to life! Just not in the DNA. The human race is doomed.. get used to the idea: it’s a kinda relief from all this damn virus and climate stuff.. enjoy what’s left. Don’t reproduce.. ’twas a hell of a ride!
i’m not sure he’s capable of being advised. There was another Unherd article that described his regime as a “court” rather than a government and that strikes me as apt. Boris is clearly under the thumb of his new wife, who wields the sort of influence no leader’s spouse should be allowed, given that no one has voted for her. She seems a rather brainless hotchpotch of trendy takes on things, with no understanding of the lives of ordinary families. Since Cummings left, Johnson seems to have drifted into the role of her mouthpiece, which suggests serious lack of confidence on his part. Carrie Antoinette seems an appropriate nickname for her. Personally I think Gove is the only senior Tory with sufficient brain and political nous to take on the Willie Whitelaw role. The current cabinet are pigmies compared with the array of talents around Thatcher 40 years ago. But sadly Gove is not sufficiently appealing to voters and – as the author says – he has too much history with Johnson to be given such a role. Oh well, I guess we just sit and watch the drift into chaos and hope we can escape the worst of it. No government is going to save us.But then no government ever has.
It is, as Peter Franklin makes clear, a reference to Maragret Thatcher’s comment regarding Willie Whitelaw.
No, really ?! That’s clever
Then why not be clear and write ‘Boris needs an advisor like Willie Whitelaw’ ?
Only in the UK do you get such feeble humour
Meant to be understood in the UK – or have I missed where this site is based? Meaning of the title was obvious. Maybe you now appreciate the problems we have with your country’s political assumptions.
Only in the UK? Really?
Well, no other countries attempt humour do they
I agree with the sentiment regarding the need for a Willie, but Boris speaks to a voting public that is really weary of pessimism and stentorious lecturing.
Dangling off a zip wire wasn’t hugely serious either, but was probably worth a lot of votes.
I think whoever is put in place will not solve the problem; the problem is Johnson himself and the conservatives need to grow a pair and remove him.
I believe his popularity is overhyped on the basis that there are few alternatives out there. Having a conservative would be a good start.
I suspect that the Tories will be averaging +5 points over Labour in the polls by the New Year and “Boris needs a Willie” stories will disappear for another few months.
I remember when Jo Johnson resigned and that was the end of Boris. And when the hated Remainer Parliament forced him to send a letter to the EU and that was the end of Boris. And when Priti Patel’s permanent secretary resigned and sued the government. And when Dominic Cummings went for an eye-test. And when Christmas was cancelled due to lockdown. And curtain-gate. And Dom Cummings tell-all. And when he wouldn’t give the nurses a pay rise. And when they put up NI. And when there were queues at the petrol pumps.
The truth is, because of the original sin of winning the EU referendum, the majority of the media yearn for the end of Boris. But that doesn’t mean it is likely.
Somehow the words stentorious and Peppa Pig don’t quite fit together: or do they??
I think you’re all being too hard on the PM. From my side of the Pond, I think Peppa Pig is a marvelous avatar for Global Britain. After all, she’s managed to reverse the linguistic flow and export British English to the United States (at least among the under-5 set, watching her during lockdown). Quite a feat, that considering the global reach Hollywood provides for our dialect.
I would have thought “it sank”.
Am I the only one who liked his comments. He’s right about Peppa Pig; she does look like a hairdryer
I watched it – although actually the same speech delivered to a different audience later in the day – and thought it was pretty good.
Peppa Pig always struck me as an advert for traditional family structures and conservative lifestyles – married parents and grandparents, two kids, nice but not lavish house and car, dad works, mum stays at home with the pre-school age kids, good and well used local services. In fact I think that is why it is so popular with kids – a relatable ideal of family life with a few jokes at the expense of Daddy Pig.
Why shouldn’t a British PM talk about those things? God knows we get fed enough “alternative lifestyles” from other media and politicians.
Is he really that good at improvising? I struggle to think of any significant successes. Up to now he has been good at selling excuses for errors of judgment, but “the dog ate my homework” wears thin after a while. The Owen Patterson debacle seems likely to do him lasting harm. He can’t afford many more slip ups before the men in grey suits call at Number 10, as they did with Thatcher.
His amateur behaviour on all fronts is an embarrassment. Where is the outrage from his own party? Surely they can see the direction of the polls as well as anyone, and know that it is time to replace him.
What I think this article fails to take into account is that Johnson is, actually quite stupid but has discovered coping mechanisms for covering it which do not involve doing any serious work. He is the sort, usually male, we have all met them, who arrives at a meeting having not read, or not understood the papers and proceeds to cover this failure by a mixture of jokes, irrelevant remarks, time-wasting questions and sometimes agression. One should not be put off by the Eton and Balliol stuff; my guess would be that he went fron Eton to Balliol on a closed scholarship meanining that he required minimum A levels and his degree was probably inflated to allow for the fact that he was President of the Union.
University Education is not a sine qua non. John Major almost certainly left school at 16 with no qualifications and James Callaghan left school at 13. Both went on to hold the highest honours in the land which they performed conscientiously. Johnson, however, learned in his education a sense of entitlement that he should get what he wants with no effort. Sadly the loveable public-school rogue seems to appeal to great sections of the English population (it doesn’t translate well in Wales of Scotland. I feel this country has been put through the sort of scenario like that episode of Fawlty Towers when a con-man calling himself Lord Something-or-other gets preferential treatment and rinses the hotel out.
It does become clear, even without Dominic Cummings’ spiteful recollections that Johnson simply had no idea what leaving the Custom’s Union and Single Market actually meant in real terms though it is immaterial whether his breezy remarks to Northern Ireland Business was lying or ignorance. Either way, a climb down will, I think happen over Christmas, hopefully with Johnson being persuaded to spend more time with his families
I agree that he is stupid; he is clever without being intelligent.
“He is the sort, usually male, we have all met them, who arrives at a meeting having not read, or not understood the papers and proceeds to cover this failure by a mixture of jokes, irrelevant remarks, time-wasting questions and sometimes agression.”
Sounds perfectly sane to me. ‘Meetings’ are the bane of human life.
Perhaps the Cabal believe his time is up since he’s failed to enforce the universal jabbing and send the dirty Unjabbed to the FEMA camps?
I do not blame the Prime Minister for having his notes in a muddle. After he had corrected and altered the text that was given to him by his speechwriter, it should have been typed and put in a proper order in a file for him. Boris Johnston may be a bit of a bumbler but he has the charisma which appeals to women – half the population!
It’s almost certainly the case that Bojo was scribbling his amendments and…err…improvements to the drafted speech in the minutes before delivering it. That’s his MO. (See Jeremy Vine’s MY Boris Johnson Story over at The Spectator.)
I’m disappointed in several of Boris’ decisions starting a year ago (e.g. HS2 confirmation and ratifying the TCA), but appreciate that the pressure on a PM is colossal in normal times, let alone during Brexit with its unresolved problems and an international epidemic, to mention but two, and it is obvious to me that for the most part, the media are hostile. And I wonder if his illness hasn’t affected him.
Naturally, when I saw him turning over the pages, I wondered – why weren’t they stapled? I learned the wisdom of that a long time ago. Better still, use an autocue. Is he being properly supported? Did someone not ensure that he was properly prepared? It’s his responsibility, of course, to choose those around him. Past PMs have always been so well supported that they felt helpless once out of power, so there’s no excuse.
But Conservatives; he’s the only PM you’ve got right now, so support him, don’t undermine him. He must arrive at his policies wisely, to retain the support of his supporters, which is basic The approval of political enemies is unattainable.
I believe BJ accurately reflects the UK Remainer type: adulation of their (Etonian) betters: longing for the old days of Empire: while I’m no expert in Peppa Pig I believe that creature, while pink is no pinko: more your dyed in the wool, backward looking Uncle Albert “During the war..” type..
The UK will now decline like Egypt, ancient Greece, Rome, thd Ottoman Empire etc. longing for the good old days while the world, esp the EU moves on.. what can I say but enjoy the slide..
Excellent!
The article makes a good point that Boris needs someone to cover his weaknesses. The Tory party are cohesive when they need to be and will not keep Boris if he is a threat to the next election – there is a level of ridicule that he cannot comeback from. Their problem is who else can they annoint as PM and would Boris go quietly? Jeremy Hunt?
I wondered why there was no autocue. Is it true that BJ refuses to use one?
As for the CBI – during many years of working in the corporate world I can’t recall any occasion when they were useful or relevant.
NEDO was both perhaps?
If he can’t even part his hair, let alone the Red Sea as he seems to think he can, perhaps he needs two willies!
I listened to the parts of the speech bbc choose, so I probably got the “worst part”. Yes he somewhat lost his way. But In the end I understood what he was saying. If you don’t, he probably wasn’t talking to you. He was making the point that big government would have never made the pigs abode a reality. These creative endeavours come from private enterprise.
What are the odds of having an ‘off day’ every day for two years?
The author has failed to understand that Alok Sharma’s presidency role has not finished yet. He certainly earned my respect by showing some emotion at the thought of the death-blow to our only habitable planet. We flatter ourselves as the most intelligent species that ever walked the Earth, yet we have decided that our life support eco-systems are simply not worth saving. For those of you who found COVID challenging the likelihood of more virulent pandemics increases every day that we attempt to grow our economy in the face of huge ecological debt and escalating sixth mass extinction.
“Over-and-over again, we’ve seen this government veer-off on tangents that are every bit as unexpected as a Peppa Pig anecdote.”
No need to veer off on superfluous hyphens either. They are, in fact, incorrectly applied in that particular sentence.
Anyway, what this performance before the CBI by the PM shows is that he has his finger on the pulse of youth culture — even if said youth, say, are not amused by the PM’s antics. Probably the PM had thought some proper light relief was required. He probably thought afterwards that the cool response to his pluck was indicative of how boringly Continental the country had become in its upper echelons as well as how forgetful of the cheerful bulldog spirit or pluck that the pandemic has made the general population. He has his finger on the pulse alright, if a little too strongly, because the pulse is weak. But by Jove he’ll have that pulse beat back strong as he re-invigorates in his own way the country’s spirit!
I think this is probably a spoof defence of our chaotic PM. Thanks for a bit of amusement anyway on a grey morning.
This is why we need a ‘this made me laugh’ button as opposed to upvoting and downvoting,
My upvotes are nearly always an appreciation of wit. I have never downvoted. Proves nothing.
You’re right about the hyphens: all of them are incorrect. Together with the “sank/sunk” mistake, there is instilled in my mind just a tiny note of caution about the credibility of the article. Literacy matters!