Boris Johnson once said the mayor from 'Jaws' is his 'hero' for keeping beaches open and letting people die

Boris Johnson has faced a lot of criticism for his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

In fact, it’s been alleged that weeks of inaction in February could have caused thousands of unnecessary deaths. The government denies this, but his reluctance to enter lockdown and also his vague route out of it have been a matter of constant scrutiny.

Back in March, comments Johnson made in 2006 resurfaced. And lots of people made the link between remarks he made about the film Jaws, of all things, and his slow approach to fighting the virus.

Addressing an audience at Lloyd’s in London, Johnson said:

The real hero of Jaws is the mayor. A gigantic fish is eating all your constituents and he decides to keep the beaches open. OK, in that instance he was actually wrong. But in principle, we need more politicians like the Mayor. We are often the only obstacle against all the nonsense which is really a massive conspiracy against the taxpayer.

For those that need reminding, Mayor Vaughn is the antagonist in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece, Jaws. This is a man who puts profit over safety to the last and insists that business will operate as usual over the early July bank holiday weekend on beaches under attack by a great white shark. Lots of people died as a result.

Now people are remembering Johnson’s comments again as beaches across the UK become crammed full of people in the middle of a pandemic.

Experts have warned that a second wave is more than possible if people don’t continue to keep their distance from each other. As Bournemouth beach was declared a “major incident” because of the sheer number of people there. Matt Hancock has warned that the government does have the power to shut beaches and will if they have to.

But with a political hero like Mayor Vaughn, maybe the PM won’t want to?