BORIS Johnson has made yet another embarrassing geographical error after he mixed up Teesside with Tyneside.
After campaigning in Whitley Bay in the North East of England, the Prime Minister tweeted he had been speaking to voters in Teesside when the seaside town is actually in Tyneside some 40 miles further north.
It's not the first time Johnson has said he was somewhere he wasn't after he once claimed COP26 had taken place in Edinburgh rather than Glasgow during a Downing Street press conference.
And back in 2018 when he was Foreign Secretary, he had to be spoken to by then prime minister Theresa May after he repeatedly mixed up Yemen with Lebanon during a cabinet discussion on the Yemen civil war.
At the meeting, he said: “We have got to do something about the Saudi war on Lebanon…”
Ministers thought it was a momentary slip initially but, to their shock, he then repeated the mistake despite Lebanon being 1400 miles away from Yemen and not involved in the conflict.
His latest mishap has not been well received by opposition MPs in the Teesside and Tyneside regions.
Bridget Phillipson, Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, said on Twitter: "Teesside, Tyneside, all the same to him. He doesn’t even know where he is. Britain deserves better.”
Tynemouth MP Alan Campbell added: “The PM believes he was campaigning in Teesside. Actually, he was in Whitley Bay North Tyneside. He doesn’t really care where he is or what he says.
“He doesn’t really care about who he meets or what they care about.”
Erm…how to say this…? That’s 𝐍𝐎𝐓 Teesside.#WhitleyBay pic.twitter.com/fxb7ZaQs5A
— Angela Rayner 🌹 (@AngelaRayner) May 2, 2022
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner also pointed out the PM's blunder and tweeted: "Erm…how to say this…? That’s NOT Teesside.”
The Labour North group mocked the PM as well with a joke "Where's the Wally?" map, detailing how far Whitley Bay was from Teesside and telling him to bring a map next time.
Care about the North East? He doesn't even know where he is. Bring a map to your next photo op @BorisJohnson. pic.twitter.com/7Ds8Pp9EV8
— Labour North (@LabourNorth) May 2, 2022
Johnson has since deleted the post and put out another tweet, but this time he decided to not bother trying to be specific about where he was.
It says: “It was a fantastic day to be out campaigning in the North East.”
