Boris Johnson reveals he makes models of buses to relax, and Twitter lost it
As mayor of London Boris Johnson may have been more synonymous with his eponymous Boris bikes, but these days he is far more at home with buses, it would seem.
The Tory leadership contest favourite has hit back at negative headlines after police were called to a domestic row between him and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds over the weekend.
In interviews today he has taken a bullish stance on Brexit and vowed to offer steep tax cuts for higher earners.
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But in an interview earlier he also told Talk Radio how he likes to relax – by turning wooden crates into London buses.
Trying to convey his passion for public transport, Johnson initially explained that he liked to make models of buses before correcting himself, saying that wasn’t quite what he meant.
“I don’t mean models of buses. What I make is, I get old … wooden crates right, and then I paint them and, suppose it’s a box that has been used to contain two wine bottles and it will have a dividing thing, I turn it into a bus,” he said.
“I paint the passengers enjoying themselves on the wonderful bus,” he added.
As a former mayor, Johnson made the link to the London buses introduced under his tenure in the capital.
“Low carbon of a kind that we brought to the streets of London that reduces CO2, reduces Nitrous Oxide, reducing pollution,” he said.
But many others linked the pastime to Johnson’s appearance in front of a Vote Leave Brexit bus during the EU referendum campaign in 2016.
That bus was adorned with the false claim that the UK sends £350m a week to the EU.
Johnson recently overturned a court ruling that he should stand trial over his endorsement of the claim after a member of the public crowdfunded more than £300,000 to bring the private prosecution.
Still, Twitter couldn’t help but make the connection.
Leave campaigner Darren Grimes called for a video in which Johnson made a Vote Leave bus out of old wine boxes, flagging its “triggering potential”.
Others wondered if the slogan on the Vote Leave bus was Johnson’s own efforts to embrace a larger canvas.
While some thought they had spotted some of Johnson’s earlier efforts.
Read more: Boris Johnson’s tax cuts plan could cost UK £20bn a year
Still other Twitter users thought the whole thing may be some kind of joke the Vote Boris campaign would now be forced to back up with cold, hard cardboard fact.