Boris Johnson’s Red Wall blunder

Oh dear. It seems that Boris Johnson’s passionate electioneering doesn’t extend to, er, knowing where he actually is. The Prime Minister has been out and about on the campaign trail, touring the country to drum up support for his party’s flagging fortunes, three days before voters cast their verdict on his government’s recent woes.

Posting a photo of himself eating an ice cream in Whitley Bay, Johnson tweeted that it was a ‘fantastic day to be out campaigning in Teesside, where we’re delivering a massive programme of investment as part of our plan to level up the whole of the UK.’ Unfortunately, Whitley Bay is actually in Tyneside, not Teesside, prompting opposition parties to accuse the PM of paying little attention to the area outside of election periods. The offending tweet was, inevitably, swiftly deleted thereafter and replaced with a milquetoast substitute which claimed it ‘was a fantastic day to be out campaigning in the North East.’