Boris Johnson claimed won't take a knee because he doesn't like 'gestures' – but here's 12 times he didn't mind them at all

Boris Johnson has sensationally complained that he wouldn't take a knee in support of Black Lives Matter adding that he doesn't 'believe in gestures.'

This came during an interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC Radio on Friday morning after he was asked about the lack of Black ministers in his cabinet. Ferrari then asked if he would be willing to take the knee, which Keir Starmer had already done, while the foreign secretary Dominic Raab said that he wouldn't.

Johnson's excuse was that he didn't like seeing people being "bullied" into something that they didn't want to do and that he prefers actions rather than '"gestures".

I don’t believe in gestures, I believe in substances... I don’t want people to be bullied into doing things that make a practical difference.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, the suggestion that he doesn't like gestures doesn't exactly ring true as most of his political career has been based upon, well, gestures that he didn't always follow through on.

Here are a few examples:

Clapping for the NHS

This is possibly the most notable gesture that the prime minister has committed in recent memory.

The weekly clap every Thursday at 8pm to show thanks for the NHS and key workers who were on the front line against coronavirus was a nice way to slightly raise spirits for the nation and show appreciation.

However, when politicians started doing it despite voting against giving NHS nurses a pay rise and not giving them adequate PPE or not going into lockdown sooner felt a little disingenuous.

Waving a fish around above his head

Perhaps the weirdest gesture in Johnson's extensive back catalogue was when he actually waved a fish above his head during a Tory leadership hustings event and claiming that it had come from a kipper smoker in the Isle of Man who was furious with the EU about a minor piece of law.

It's astonishing to think that Johnson would actually go on to win the election after this and it remains to be seen if he will eradicate this fishy bit of law for good.

Anything to do with Brexit

We really don't need to tell you about the multitude of nonsense that Johnson said during the 2016 EU referendum and everything that came afterwards that was either false or didn't come true but we might as well list a few of them again, just in case you'd forgotten:

Posing for a photo while signing a piece of paper saying that he didn't agree with Theresa May's Brexit deal:

Driving around in a big red bus with a lie about how much money was going to be given back to the NHS if we voted to Leave the EU:

Smashing a bulldozer through a wall with the words 'Get Brexit Done' written on it:

Waving around a packet of TimTams to promote a deal with Australia which isn't all it's cracked up to be:

When he wore some boxing gloves with 'Get Brexit Done' written on them as part of his election campaign:

The time he *gestured* on LBC Radio

Here is a very literal gesture that he made on LBC Radio in November 2019 when a discussion about social care wasn't quite going his way.

Sensing that things weren't really working for him, Johnson motioned to someone to either cut him off or move on by making a cutting movement by his neck clearly forgetting that although he was on radio he was also being filmed too.

The push-ups

A very, very recent gesture was when he did some push-ups for the Mail on Sunday to prove he was as "fit as a butcher's dog" and "full of beans" with potentially numerous push-ups or maybe just one.

Either way this was a gesture purely to prove that he was in good health and more strenuous than taking a knee.

Trying to mop up flood water

Going back to November 2019 again, here is Johnson trying to mop up flood water that had destroyed parts of rural Derbyshire and doing a quite frankly terrible job.

Truly a gesture that his heart wasn't in:

Giving tea to journalists

When facing an accusation of Islamophobia after comparing Muslim women to 'letter boxes and bank robbers' Johnson came up with another great gesture to distract from his own problems by giving tea to the members of the press that had congregated outside of his home attempting to ask him questions.

The infamous zipline fiasco

When Boris Johnson isn't in power anymore and isn't as prominent a figure in British politics, the one image that we will probably remember him for is dangling from a zipline and waving a couple of plastic Union Jack's around.

This moment actually occurred during the 2012 London Olympics when he was the mayor of the city and was highlighting the attractions the capital had to offer during a visit to Victoria Park.

The zip line had just been installed at the landmark and while most politicians would have either avoided taking part in such a spectacle, Johnson decided to give it his best shot and ended up stranded there in an undignified harness.

To make this worse this happened on the day that the rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won Britain's first gold medal of the Olympics.

Not only did his gesture make him look like a fool he also distracted from what should have been the proudest day in two athletes' lives.

It seems the prime minister is quite a big fan of gestures after all... at least when they're not about supporting the anti-racist movement. Funny that.