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Boris Johnson’s rebranding of himself as the ‘incredible hulk’ goes horribly, horribly wrong
The UK PM tried to conjure up a new persona for himself recently. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, he essentially likened himself to the Incredible Hulk. But then he had to leave the reassuring embrace of right-wing newspapers and go out into the world.
Boris ‘Incredible Hulk’ Johnson lasted all of about five seconds.
The wrong shade of green
In the interview with the Mail on Sunday, Johnson said:
The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets, Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be – and that is the case for this country. We will come out on October 31.
The PM, of course, was talking about Brexit. And he seemed to be suggesting that if the EU makes ‘Hulk’ mad in Brexit talks, it’d better watch out. The ‘Hulk’ will always escape, he warned. And the UK’s ‘Hulk’ did indeed escape, but not in the heroic manner of his comic book namesake.
Johnson was due to appear at a press conference in Luxembourg. To be clear, this is one of the teeniest countries in the EU. But there were protesters in the area. And Johnson bailed, I mean escaped, because it was “too noisy”.
It pains me to go down this route, I swore I’d never mention it, but as a statement of fact: Yesterday Boris Johnson called himself the Incredible Hulk. Today he was too scared to go to his own press conference because it would have been, in his own words, “too noisy”
— Tom Peck (@tompeck) September 16, 2019
My favourite episode of The Incredible Hulk is the one where a small group of people shouted too loudly so he ran away
— Michael Deacon (@MichaelPDeacon) September 16, 2019
The Incredible Sulk
Johnson’s squeamish reaction to the presence of protesters quickly earned him a new persona:
BORIS Johnson skips press conference with Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel claiming it was 'too noisy'. Is that what his self proclaimed alter ego would have done?#Brexit #BrexitChaos #BorisHulk #BorisJohnsonLies #XavierBettel #Luxembourg #Remainers #RemainsTheAnswer pic.twitter.com/0Fq0raYx3e
— Higgins Cartoons (@higginscartoons) September 16, 2019
Of late, right-wing papers have worked hard to force an entirely different characterisation on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. They’ve expended a lot of energy trying to convince Britain he’s a “chicken“. Well, Corbyn has now got some stiff competition:
Downing Street might not mind the optics too much given the views of core Tory voters, but Boris Johnson deciding to skip a press conference because of noisy protesters puts the "chicken" jibes against Jeremy Corbyn into context. https://t.co/eIL1hUR8Gd
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 16, 2019
Clearly, the best-laid plans of comic book hero pretenders and Dominic Cummings do go awry. Often, in fact.
Featured image via YouTube – Guardian News
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