Boris Johnson enthused about a visit to Peppa Pig World and pretended to be a speeding car during an occasionally baffling speech to business chiefs.

The Prime Minister – who also made a passing comparison between himself and Moses – trekked to South Shields to explain his new-found enthusiasm for wind power.

But like many parents of toddlers, Mr Johnson’s mind may not have been as focused on the task in hand as he might have liked.

Rather than spending hours in No 10 or Chequers putting a final polish on his big speech to the Confederation of British Industry, Mr Johnson spent Sunday at a theme park devoted to a cartoon pig.

Mr Johnson described Peppa Pig as “pure genius”, despite resembling a “Picasso-like hairdryer”, with the show a £6 billion massive global success story.

“I was a bit hazy what I would find at Peppa Pig World but I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place,” Mr Johnson said about his day out at the Hampshire attraction.

“It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, a heavy emphasis in new mass transit systems, I noticed, even if they are a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.”

Peppa Pig
Boris Johnson confessed his admiration for Peppa Pig (Nick Ansell/PA)

Praising the ingenuity of the private sector, Mr Johnson said “no Whitehall civil servant could conceivably have come up with Peppa”.

In a speech that was meant to be about green policies Mr Johnson, who once claimed wind farms could not “pull the skin off a rice pudding”, praised the “beautiful white mills” off the North Sea coast “as we claim a new harvest, rich and green from the drowned meadows of Doggerland”.

That power could fuel electric vehicles (EVs) – although Mr Johnson acknowledged they may not “burble” like a high-powered petrol car, impersonating a roaring engine to underline the point.

The Prime Minister also compared his 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution to the 10 Commandments brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai.