Boris Johnson will soon be on backbenches ‘he just doesn’t know it yet’, says SNP’s Blackford in ballet ad joke

Much-mocked ad for cyber security jobs deployed against PM in parliament

Boris Johnson became the punchline of a joke about a much-maligned government-backed advertising campaign during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, poked fun at a now-infamous advert suggesting a ballet dancer should retrain to work in cyber security.

“Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet)”, read the ad, which carried the logo of HM Government but was withdrawn this week after being widely mocked and denounced by culture secretary Oliver Dowden as “crass”.

Questioning Mr Johnson over the prospect of “mass unemployment” when the coronavirus furlough scheme comes to an end in two weeks, Mr Blackford said: “We know what the prime minister’s Tory colleagues are saying: the prime minister’s next job could be on the backbenches. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

The SNP MP said the prime minister would “never, not ever, be forgiven” in Scotland for “inflicting a tsunami of unemployment this winter” if he refused to extend the furlough scheme beyond the end of October.

The furlough scheme is to be replaced by less generous wage subsidies for workers of businesses that have been forced to close under coronavirus laws. 

But the new financial support package has been denounced as “insufficient” by leaders in some of the worst-hit regions, where it is feared there could be a wave of business closures and job losses.