Please Enjoy This UK Politician Forgetting What Happened In World War Two… In His Own PR Video
He also apparently thought James Bond was a real person?
As we know well here in Australia, politicians’ attempts to create friendly, relatable social media videos can only end one way: in embarrassment. Today, the UK has learnt this too, after behind-the-scenes clips of former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson trying to film a social media vid were aired in a documentary.
The minute and a half of behind the scenes footage, filmed for BBC documentary show Inside The Foreign Office, is basically a glorious montage of Johnson fucking up his video in every way possible. While trying to film a short video from Lisbon for his Twitter feed, he manages to forget what happened in World War Two, accidentally claim that James Bond was born in Lisbon (you know, fictional character James Bond who is not real and was never born), and confidently assert that Portugal is the UK’s fourth biggest trading partner (it’s the other way round).
He also calls the UK’s relationship with Portugal “the oldest alliance and friendship in diplomatic history” which is just not true, but is also quickly overshadowed by that stuff about World War Two.
You know, “the Second World War, where of course this was a place where, er…er, I’m trying to think, what happened in the Second World War?”, as Boris says in the video. “Cut this for a second, what did we do in the Second World War?”
And sure, maybe Boris was just having an off day. Except he wasn’t because the end of the montage includes a clip from a totally different day in Paris, where he turns to the camera to confidently inform the viewer that Paris “is, of course, our closest European…oh, start again.”
This is, to be clear, is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson: one of the key players behind Brexit, and the guy who used to hold one of the UK’s most powerful political positions. And yet, with a team of media advisers standing by, he still can’t remember what happened in World War Two. Behold:
I watched this with my mouth open the entire time pic.twitter.com/GmvYcLr0yS
— Hannah Jane Parkinson (@ladyhaja) November 27, 2018