Boris Johnson was left floundering today when he lost his place in a high-profile speech to business leaders.
The prime minister was rendered speechless for 20 seconds as he searched through his text, muttering “forgive me, forgive me”.
The normally fluent PM had already stumbled over his words several times during the speech to the CBI at the Port of Tyne, in which he asked executives whether they had ever visited Peppa Pig World and made “vroom vroom” car noises as he described the acceleration of an electric vehicle.
He also came close to swearing when he said he doubted people would permanently want to work from home except for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday – “an acronym I won’t repeat”.
As he told business leaders of his confidence that workers will want to return to the office, it became clear that he had lost his place in the speech as he appeared to ad lib briefly before shuffling through the pile of A4 sheets on the lectern in front of him.
Not only will young people want to be in the office to learn from co-workers, but also “there are sound evolutionary reasons that Mother Nature does not like working from home”, he said, in what appeared to be an improvisation on his text.
His audience was silent during the lengthy pause as he told them “With safer streets, with great local schools, with fantastic broadband…” before finally finding his place and continuing “…people will have the confidence to stay near the place that they grew up to start businesses”.
Even after he worked out where he was in the speech, the PM continued to shuffle the papers in front of him and stumble over his words, and at times it appeared he was struggling to fill gaps in the text with hastily dreamt-up comments.
At one point he told his audience of high-powered bosses: “Yesterday I went – as we all must – to Peppa Pig World.
Launching into a paean of praise for the Hampshire theme park inspired by the popular pre-school children’s cartoon, the PM asked: “I don’t know if you’ve been to Peppa Pig World? “Hands up who’s been to Peppa Pig World.”
As few of the CBI bigwigs lifted their hands, the prime minister commented: “Not enough. It’s fantastic. I was a bit hazy, but I was fine in Peppa Pig World. I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place.
“It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on mass transit systems, I notice, even if they are a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.”
