Boris Johnson has been accused of “thermonuclear hypocrisy” in the latest instalment of the Led by Donkeys poster campaign, over comments he made about Gordon Brown in 2007.
A huge billboard in Bolton is highlighting lines from a column the Tory leadership hopeful wrote 12 years ago, in which he raged at how the UK was getting a new PM without the public having a say.
Brown became PM in 2007 after the resignation of Tony Blair. In response, Johnson wrote:
“It’s the arrogance. It’s the contempt. That’s what gets me. It’s Gordon Brown’s apparent belief that he can just trample on the democratic will of the British people. It’s at moments like this that I think the political world has gone mad, and I am alone in detecting the gigantic fraud.
“They voted for Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to serve as their leader. They were at no stage invited to vote on whether Gordon Brown should be PM… They voted for Tony, and yet they now get Gordon, and a transition about as democratically proper as the transition from Claudius to Nero. It is a scandal. Why are we all conniving in this stitch-up? This is nothing less than a palace coup… with North Korean servility, the Labour Party has handed power over to the brooding Scottish power-maniac.”
Lines from the column now grace two billboards in Bolton with Led by Donkeys asking: “If anyone’s interviewing Boris Johnson today can you ask him about this thermonuclear hypocrisy? Cheers.”
Led by Donkeys member Ben Stewart told Metro, on Tuesday: “I think the public have got a pretty good sense of when they’re being confronted by a bullshitter frankly. We’re a really sensible bunch in Britain most of the time and I think most people know the guy’s one.”
Earlier this month, the group branched out into video by projecting Johnson’s previous and less-than-flattering comments about Donald Trump onto Big Ben.
2015, Johnson was scathing in his condemnation of the then-presidential candidate but the pair have been chummy in recent months.
In the clip, Johnson says: “Donald Trump’s ill-informed comments are complete and utter nonsense. I think he’s betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States.
“I think Donald Trump is clearly out of his mind if he thinks that’s a sensible way to proceed, to ban people going to the United States in that way, or to any country.
“I would invite him to come and see the whole of London and take him round the city but I don’t want to expose Londoners to the risk to any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump.”