It seems Ferrari had him over a pork-barrel…

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…

A spokesman for Peppa Pig World responds to Boris Johnson’s comments this morning…

“We were delighted the Prime Minister devoted so much of his speech to us.”

Boris has just wrapped up his speech at the Global Investment Summit, outlining the government’s green agenda ahead of COP26 and stressing the UK’s commitment to a net zero future. “Coal, cars, cash and trees” is the refrain you can expect to hear a lot in the next few weeks. Guido’s had his doubts (to say the least) about the benefits of COP and the plans for net zero, although an acknowledgement that the “innovation” and “capitalism” behind the vaccine development should be an important lesson for climate action is bare minimum red meat from a Tory government.

As usual, Boris speech drew on some interesting cultural references to drive home his point, including Eddie Murphy’s Trading Places and Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. One line is getting more pick-up than the others, however:

“We have a cultural and media footprint so massive that Peppa Pig is – which I know a lot about at the moment – is teaching kids in America to say ‘tomato’ and ‘petrol’ and ‘mummy’ instead of ‘mom’, apparently…”

Hopefully Peppa doesn’t face being culled like her fellow pork pals…

On-camera Gordon: “It has been very good to meet you – and you are wearing the right colour today. How are your grandchildren? A good family. Good to see you.”

Off-camera Gordon: “You should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?” “Sue’s I think.” “Everything she said – she’s just a bigoted woman.”

It was 10 years ago today that the man we used to call the Prime Mentalist insulted one of his own voters. Our original report of Niall Paterson’s hot mic scoop is here. Gordon’s misery was later compounded when he, followed by the press pack, went to her house to beg for forgiveness, was seen head-in-hands on the Jeremy Vine Show listening to his words played back to him and later that day sent every Labour Party supporter a grovelling apology. He lost the following general election.

It was one of those incidents, as when Emily Thornberry tweeted her snide picture of the English flag draped outside a house, when traditional Labour voters saw the contempt in which some in the party held them. The collapse of the Red Wall a decade later is a consequence of those attitudes…

N.B. That incredible day’s developments are all here.