Boris Johnson claims the UK is suffering from an ‘orgy of national embarrassment’

Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a Cabinet meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA Wire. - Credit: PA

The UK is suffering from an ‘orgy of national embarrassment’, Boris Johnson has claimed.

Speaking to the new intake of Tory MPs the prime minister said that it was time for his party to ‘speak out loud and proud’ about the country’s history.

He said: ‘I do think this country is going through an orgy of national embarrassment about some of the things that other people around the world love most about us.

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‘People love our traditions and our history with all its imperfections. It’s crazy for us to go around trying to censor it. It’s absolutely absurd and I think we should speak out loud and proud for the UK and our history.’

And the prime minister warned the 2019 group of MPs ‘it’s about to get tougher’, amid anger at his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

He said: ‘I know it’s been tough.

‘I’ve got to warn you it’s about to get tougher. The waters are about to get choppier. But we are going to deal with it.

‘And when we build back better and faster and greener we will create a platform for the dynamism and innovation and enterprise to flourish and to create new jobs.’

Chancellor Rishi Sunak, also present at the meeting, said there will not be ‘a horror show of tax rises with no end in sight’.

He said: ‘We will need to do some difficult things, but I promise you, if we trust one another we will be able to overcome the short term challenges.

‘Now this doesn’t mean a horror show of tax rises with no end in sight.

‘But it does mean treating the British people with respect, being honest with them about the challenges we face and showing them how we plan to correct our public finances and give our country the dynamic, low tax economy we all want to see.

‘We cannot, will not and must not surrender our position as the party of economic competence and sound finance. If we argue instead that there is no limit to what we can spend, that we can simply borrow our way out of any hole then what is the difference between us and the Labour Party.’