A 2014 clip of Prime Minister Boris Johnson promoting his book about Winston Churchill on The Jonathan Ross Show has drawn comparisons to the current coronavirus crisis after resurfacing on Twitter.
Freelance journalist Robin Britton unearthed the clip of Johnson discussing book The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History on the programme six years ago.
The right-wing press has long pushed the idea of Johnson being comparable to the former PM who led Britain through the Second World War. If you Google their two names, one of the top results is a video from The Telegraph of Johnson explaining how to speak like Churchill – another video claims he has “channelled” Churchill in his speeches as PM.
But when Johnson wrote his own book about the former Tory leader, he was gifted airtime across the usual UK chat shows.
In the 2014 clip, Ross says to Johnson: “Well I didn’t realise until I was reading the book, and I thought I knew about him, I didn’t realise how crucial he was to us actually carrying on the fight against Hitler.”
Thank goodness for him that this long forgotten 2014 clip from the Johnathan Ross show hasn’t gone viral ... #WhereIsJohnson #WhereIsBoris pic.twitter.com/p5K75MDFjJ
— Robin Britton (@RobinBrittonTV) May 19, 2020
Responding, Johnson tells the host why he looked up to Churchill so much.
He said: “And of course having taken that decision to fight on within a year 30,000 British men, women and children were dead and you cannot imagine any modern politician having the guts to do that. So in that book I wanted to explain how he came to be the guy who is capable of taking that decision, what made him the man.”
The clip sparked a debate on Twitter because the number of people in the UK to die with Covid-19 has now surpassed 35,000 according to UK Government figures, but is thought to be as higher than that.
READ MORE: Covid-19: #WhereIsJohnson trends as PM avoids public
Posting it online in response to the hashtag #WhereIsJohnson, which trended earlier as it was rumoured the Tory leader would be missing another PMQs, Britton said the tag was “delivering some biting satire and barely contained anger at the visibility and quality of leadership by the PM”.
He added: “Thank goodness for him that this long forgotten 2014 clip from the Johnathan Ross show hasn’t gone viral ...”
The video has been retweeted and liked nearly 2000 times.
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