You could tell this was going to be ‘serious’ Boris from the way he took to the lectern with his jacket buttoned and his eyebrows puckered above his balefully staring eyes.
The PM had clearly ‘got serious’ to punch home his message to ‘Get serious’ about climate change and he had clearly also ‘got daring’ because he borrowed the ‘Blah Blah Blah’ quote from the people’s own climate champion, Greta Thunberg.
When he rolled into his James Bond-themed intro, there was just the slightest upward puckering of those huge cheeks to add a thin sliver of comedy potential, but the tumbleweed blowing through the hall indicated he should stick to the horror scenarios without cracking jokes.
Boris made a biting motion with his mouth as he spoke of the ‘end of human life as we know it’ and with his rolling eyed-stare at the audience as he said we could ‘Say goodbye to Miami’ we had a glimpse of Biden sitting masked with his eyes wide with fear at the prospect.
When Boris repeated his mantra of ‘coal, cars, cash and trees’ he did it this time without needing to read from his script, which made it more authentic than his last speech on the subject.
Keeping a serious, warning tone of voice he began to activate some hand gestures towards the middle of his message, throwing a wide pointing finger at the audience and throwing a fist gesture to suggest fight.
There was one more wan attempt at comedy when he made an aside about being alive in 2060 ‘and perhaps still in Downing Street’, but like any seasoned comic he read the pin-drop silence in the room and stuck to the important messaging.
With a clutching left hand and a baring of the lower teeth to signal commitment, Boris spoke about the ‘journey to a cleaner future’.
One raised fist at the end looked like an attempt to rally as he said ‘Let’s get to work’ before striding back to his seat to the sound of Biden’s enthusiastic applause ringing in his ears.
