Rishi Sunak ridiculed over ‘David Brent’ campaign video
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Rishi Sunak has been ridiculed on social media after he appeared in a new campaign video.
In the short clip, the Prime Minister used a flipchart to talk “a little bit about what’s going on in the economy and the plan we’re working towards”.
The clip was uploaded to Mr Sunak’s YouTube channel and appeared as a political party broadcast on the BBC.
It appears not to have been shared directly on his own social media accounts or official Conservative Party channels, but was widely shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Some compared the scene to the sitcom The Office and Mr Sunak to its main character David Brent, with one user saying: “A dodgy jumper and a flipchart – that’s it, that’s all our PM has left to offer”.
Mr Sunak’s two-minute video showed him explaining that Covid and the war in Ukraine have raised the cost of living.
However, he omitted Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget, delivered in September 2022, a month before Ms Truss resigned and Mr Sunak took over. The mini-Budget has been estimated to have since cost the Treasury £30 billion.
The video closed with a reference to Labour’s £28 billion green spending pledge, which The Guardian revealed to have been scrapped three minutes prior to the broadcast.
Mr Sunak was shown saying that “we all know there’s only two ways that governments can pay for things, either they borrow or they tax”. He added that “both of those things are going to cost you and your family”.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, criticised the Prime Minister for his failure to counter rising NHS waiting times by posting an edited version of the flipchart on his Twitter account.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) February 7, 2024
The clip is the latest publicity blunder that has led to mockery of the Prime Minister online after a Conservative campaign in January offered voters the chance to be sent a personalised video message from Mr Sunak.
It was soon hijacked to make videos that started with “Hi Nigel”, referring to Nigel Farage, and promised that the prime minister would deliver on “Keir’s priorities”.
On Thursday, the Conservative Party’s Twitter account shared an edited “meme” based on the flip chart clip, but is still yet to promote the original footage.
