Boris Johnson blew up his own visit to Scotland yesterday after an ill-judged “joke” praising Margaret Thatcher for apparently helping Britain fight climate change by closing coal mines.
The SNP is thrilled at having been handed a baseball bat by the Prime Minister with which they can set about him. Margaret Thatcher remains unpopular in Scotland. There are bitter memories of the Miners Strike, as there are in Boris’s Red Wall.
Speaking on a visit to an offshore wind farm in the Moray Firth, the PM was asked if he would set a deadline for ending the extraction of fossil fuels.
In a moment of madness, he said the UK had already transitioned away from coal in his lifetime, and suggested the former PM had got the ball rolling.
“Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.”
He is reported to have laughed and told reporters: “I thought that would get you going.”
The comments were met with fury by his gleeful critics (trying to look sombre) and despair from Unionists who have been on a good run lately.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola “ray of sunshine” Sturgeon blasted the remarks as “crass and deeply insensitive” to mining communities.
She tweeted: “Lives and communities in Scotland were utterly devastated by Thatcher’s destruction of the coal industry (which had zero to do with any concern she had for the planet).”
Patrick O’Flynn, a former MEP and staunch Brexiteer, tweeted: “By far the biggest gaffe of Boris Johnson’s political career, this. Absolutely taking the piss out of communities that were torn apart. I’m sickened by it.”
One Tory MP mused: “Do you think Boris made the pits comment deliberately to take the attention away from the Dominic comments about Carrie driving him crackers?” Stranger things have happened in this government.
There will now be a day of panic in Number 10 – featuring Scottish Tories getting in touch to point out the harm done, others in London missing the point and saying it’s only a joke for goodness sake these the Scots are so touchy, and then, presumably, a clarification from Boris. As Dominic Cummings says, when Boris blunders like this he will apologise to staff and beat himself up about it. First, he will be beaten up by the SNP though. All for a bad joke.
