Boris Johnson uses CBI speech to wax lyrical about Peppa Pig World and people aren’t impressed

A Peppa Pig theme park is exactly the sort of thing you‘d expect to hear someone talking about at 10:30 on a Monday morning - if you were watching Channel 5. But maybe not when you are watching a speech by the prime minister.

For some reason, when giving a speech at the CBI Conference in South Shields, Boris Johnson made a point of waxing lyrical about the children’s animated show after he visited Peppa Pig World on Sunday with his wife Carrie and son Wilfred.

In an odd moment in an already bumbling speech, Johnson asked the crowd how many of them had visited the family theme park in Paultons Park, Hampshire. Johnson’s question got a muted response, much to his dismay.

Regardless, Johnson carried on recounting his visit saying that “he very much enjoyed it” and that it was “his kind of place,” which prompted some laughter from the audience.

Johnson carried on talking about Peppa Pig World and championed its “discipline in schools” and “heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems” but wasn’t too impressed about the stereotypes being forced on Daddy Pig.

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He continued: “The real lesson about Peppa Pig World, for me, was the power of UK creativity. Who would have believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer, or a Picasso-like hairdryer, a pig that was rejected by the BBC would now be exported to 180 countries, with theme parks in both America and China as well as in the New Forest at a business that is worth at least £6 billion to this country. “

He added that he thought that was “pure genius” and that “no Whitehall civil servant would conceivably come up with Peppa.”

While Johnson might have thought this was a worthwhile tangent to go off on, the reaction on social media is unimpressed, to say the least.

Other highlights of Johnson’s speech included him championing the “bouncebackability” of British business, imitating a race car and namechecking former leader of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin.

Perhaps the most embarrassing moment was when he appeared to lose his place in his speech and spent around 20 seconds shuffling through his papers, trying to find his spot again.