SOMEWHERE in the handbook on public relations it says that politicians should not openly liken themselves to OJ Simpson.
The Prime Minister seems to have missed that key lesson.
Never one to turn down a photo opportunity, even if that opportunity is at a laboratory which warned of a Covid outbreak just 24 hours earlier, Johnson today went to Cwmbran Stadium in south Wales where a vaccination centre has been set up.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson visited Valneva vaccine lab despite being warned of Covid outbreak
While there he needed to put on some blue surgical gloves, ostensibly in order to be photographed cleaning a chair.
Cleaning the chair was the easy bit, as the Prime Minister struggled so much putting on the gloves he saw fit to fill the time with some rather awkward small talk.
As the man who leads the UK toiled to pull on the two latex gloves for almost a minute, he quipped that he was “like OJ Simpson”.
“Absolutely”, the nurse helping him could be heard to say.
Think I’ve figured out why he’s got so many kids pic.twitter.com/TI3zSqV0QF
— James Felton (@JimMFelton) February 17, 2021
For those unsure of the reference, OJ Simpson was an American football player accused of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
On October 3, 1995, an estimated 100 million people watched as the jury on the case which had dominated the media landscape found Simpson not guilty of both crimes. However, a US civil court jury later found him liable and he was ordered to pay $33.5m (£25m) in damages. He also spent nine years in prison, from 2008 to 2017, on separate charges.
On the path to that controversial not guilty verdict in 1995, Simpson had famously tried on the blood-stained gloves found at the crime scene.
The former American football player struggled for minutes in front of a large audience to put on the “murder gloves”, before declaring them “too small”.
After the demonstration, witness Richard Rubin, former vice president and general manager of glove maker Aris Isotoner, inspected Simpson's bare hands. He testified Simpson was a size large or extra-large, the same as the gloves found at the murder scene.
The prosecuting attorney suggested the former footballer had faked the courtroom struggle, or later that the blood had dried and caused them to shrink.
“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” Simpson’s lawyer Johnnie Cochran said in response.
READ MORE: Tories fume after Nicola Sturgeon blocks right-wing journalist on Twitter
Quite why Boris Johnson saw fit to reference this while visiting a Covid vaccination centre we will never know.
What we do know is that the joke has not gone unnoticed, with OJ Simpson trending on Twitter as a result.
While some took it as a light-hearted remark and made their own in reply, such as that Johnson's having many children was explained by his inability to use latex protection, others condemned the Prime Minister.
Charity Women's Aid tweeted: "We were disappointed to hear the Prime Minister make a joke about the murder of Nicole Brown-Simpson.
"What can be dismissed as a ‘lighthearted joke’ can have a much deeper impact in dismissing men’s violence against women."
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