The day Boris Johnson made global headlines in South Tyneside - by waffling about Peppa Pig World

The PM was in South Tyneside in November 2021 to open the CBI conference at Port of Tyne, where he set out his vision for the borough as part of a buzzing green industries sector for the North East.

But it all went a bit wrong. His ‘rambling’ speech saw him apologising as he shuffled through his script, then draw reference to the beloved children's character.

“Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World. I don’t know if you’ve been to Peppa Pig World, who’s been, hands up anyone who’s been to Peppa Pig World? Not enough,” he told delegates.

"I loved it and Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place. It has very safe streets, discipline in schools,heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems, even if they’re a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig."

He did manage to get in some praise for the region, however, telling the audience: "Look at the coast of the North East where we are today, row after row stretching out into the North Sea of beautiful white mills as we claim a new harvest, rich and green, from the meadows of Dogger Bank.”

The Prime Minister said achieving his green revolution goal would help the UK become a bigger economy than Germany.

After being questioned by ITV after the speech on whether “everything was OK”, Mr Johnson said: “I think that people got the vast majority of the points that I wanted to make and I thought it went over well.”

Gazette readers said they were not impressed by Mr Johnson’s comments.

Commenting on our Facebook page at the time, Melanie Featherstone said: “He waffled on about Peppa Pig World. He's better suited being PM of Peppa pig world although George is probably more articulate and Rebecca Rabbit would thrash him at PMQs.”

Mark Davies posted: “Wow what an utter shambles of a speech too. Haha. What a joke.”

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