Every politician being interviewed either by an intrusive or hostile interviewer runs the risk of panicking and saying something stupid or mistakenly uttering something that could quite easily be taken out of context. It’s quite possible that sometimes a politician can say something and it defines either their political campaign or their time in office and this definition can be for good or ill when it comes to that politician’s reputation. A good example of a comment by a politician is Margaret late Baroness Thatcher’s comment during an interview with Woman’s Own magazine in 1987 about there being ‘no such thing as society’. This comment has of course been taken out of context by many including many on the Left, but it has also defined her time in office just as much as when she said during a party conference speech ‘You turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning’.

But sometimes a politician’s words can come back to haunt them and damage them or leave them open to mockery. The late former US president George HW Bush’s ‘read my lips, no new taxes’ comment became a byword for dishonest politicking and of politicians who fail to deliver on their promises to voters. Then there was former Prime Minister John Major’s ‘back to basics’ speech which got brought up time and time again after his party and members of his government became embroiled in one sleazy scandal after another with the ‘back to basics’ speech being used to highlight the hypocrisy of many of those in John Major’s government. Also how could any observer of British politics forget how hubris in 1981 on the part of the old Liberal Party, which was then in alliance with the Social Democratic Party, led the then Liberal leader David Steel to say to his party ‘go back to your constituencies and prepare for government’ which as we know didn’t happen. The ‘go back to your constituencies’ comment by David Steel ended up being used as a way to mock the Lib Dems, the successor party to the Liberal/SDP Alliance when this party fell short or underperformed electorally.

But enough of the political history lesson. It seems that there’s a more contemporaneous example of a massive gaffe being made in a political interview and it comes from none other than the Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP. He’s made a comment that I suspect will end up haunting not just him but his party and not in the positive liberty minded way that Baroness Thatcher’s ‘society’ speech can be seen.

In an interview with Susanna Reid, Boris Johnson was presented with the typical story of a British pensioner who has been impoverished because of energy prices. These prices are partly high due to market and supply issues but also high because of a decision by both the current and previous governments to adhere a mad net zero energy policy that inevitably leads to both higher fuel prices and insecurity of supply. In response to the story of an elderly London woman who used her OAP bus pass to ride the buses all day in order to keep warm after her energy bills shot up got the response from Johnson that he helped to bring about OAP bus passes.

Here’s how the Daily Mail reported this exchange:

Presenter Reid raised the plight of Elsie, whose energy costs in her council flat have risen from £17 to £85 a month.

In an opulent room in 10 Downing Street, Ms Reid told the PM how Elsie leaves home early ‘to use her freedom bus pass to stay on buses all day to avoid using energy at home?’ 

Asked what else Elsie should cut back on, he said: ‘I don’t want Elsie to cut back on anything, let’s talk about Elsie and what we are doing and – just to remind you that the 24-hour freedom bus pass was something that I actually introduced.’

Yes this ‘bus pass’ comment by Johnson was only part of a comment that he made on help for those struggling with fuel bills, but it is the part that many people are likely to remember and they are likely to especially remember this comment when they come to vote in the local elections later this week.

If you wanted to create a parody of a Tory MP who didn’t give a toss about those whom they were supposed to look after and be concerned about then this ‘but I brought in freedom passes’ comment would be how you do that. It makes Johnson look out of touch and unconcerned with the penury that has been visited upon the average Briton by the government’s piss poor energy policy.

Boris Johnson’s comment looks a little bit like a ‘let them eat cake’ sort of comment to be quite honest and I’m sure that I’m not the only Briton who will have noticed that.