Boris didn’t make just one speech featuring Peppa Pig yesterday. After making a pig’s ear of it on his first attempt, he gave it another go later in the day – this time without losing his place, or upending the news flow for about 12 hours. Speaking at the big Centre for Policy Studies’ Margaret Thatcher Conference dinner last night, Boris said:

“I don’t know if you’ve heard the news my friends but yesterday I went to Peppa Pig World […] Hands up who has been to Peppa Pig World? […] I was initially quite hesitant but I found it was very much my kind of place, Peppa Pig World. It had good schools, excellent health care – there’s a bear called […] Dr Brown Bear who turns up no trouble too great, always turns up for in-person consultations. Superb infrastructure – novel transport, mass transit systems systems in Peppa Pig World. And safe streets, virtually no crime that I can see. 

[…]

Peppa’s influence, – she’s got a younger brother called George by the way – Peppa’s cultural influence, is so pervasive that kids in America now say ‘to-mah-to’ instead of ‘tom-ate-o’ and ‘mummy’ rather than ‘mom’ … Anyway, and there you go – that is believed to be a direct result of Peppa Pig and that is the effect of the free trade in which Margaret Thatcher believed.”

If at first you don’t succeed…