Outgoing UK prime minister Boris Johnson invited more criticism this week after he took a RAF Typhoon fighter jet for a spin. The UK prime minister’s official YouTube channel, the Downing Street, released a video where Johnson could be seen aboard the fighter jet where he also took charge of the controls.
On Tuesday, Boris Johnson met the representatives from the aviation industry at the Farnborough Air Show.
He also drew comparisons between flying the fighter jet and the government’s achievements under his tenure.
“After three happy years in the cockpit, performing some pretty difficult if not astonishing feats, I am about to hand the controls over seamlessly to someone else,” Johnson said. He also took a jibe at his detractors within the Tories.
“I leave it to you to imagine who at this stage I would like to send into orbit,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s team has attacked former chancellor to the exchequer Rishi Sunak blaming him for the downfall of the prime minister. The Times earlier this month reported that Boris Johnson would back foreign secretary Liz Truss or Penny Mordaunt over Rishi Sunak.
The issues arose after it was revealed that Sunak’s campaign website domain was registered in December 2021 suggesting that Sunak was planning to fight for the UK premiership and his resignation was not spontaneous.
After riding on the fighter jet, Boris Johnson described his experience. He said the wing commander after some time asked the leader if he wanted to take control of the jet.
“Are you sure, it seems very expensive to me?’ We only have 148 of them and they cost £75 million a pop,” Boris said in response.
He received quick assurance from the pilot: “Don’t worry you can’t break it.”
Johnson said he ‘pushed the joystick right over to the right’ and did an aileron roll. He said he also did the ‘loop the loop’ trick, calling it ‘fantastic’.
“Then I did a more complicated thing called a barrel roll and I pushed the stick up and right a bit,” Johnson said in a speech addressing the event which is among the world’s biggest aerospace and defence trade shows.
He said that he also ‘went into a reverie’ while being mid-air where he dreamt ‘incredible forest of wind farms’ over the North Sea. He then took a moment to praise his government. “I thought about the way this government in the past few years has been reclaiming Doggerland, harvesting the drained prairies of the North Sea,” Boris Johnson said.
However, not all were impressed with Johnson’s experience flying a Typhoon jet. The Labour Party attacked Johnson for his antics claiming the he and his cabinet ministers have ‘clocked off’ while the UK simmers under a deadly heat wave.
“We think the Government ought to do a number of things: first is to turn up to work,” Lisa Nandy was quoted as saying by Sky News.
(with inputs from Sky News and The Sun)
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