Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak should know the pitfalls of a photo opportunity

There is a simple truth – no amount of artfulness can stop the truth cheekily poking its nose into a contrived attempt at PR, says Sean O’Grady

Full of it: Sunak at the pumps on Wednesday (HM Treasury)

All things considered, it’s been a bad week for the photo opportunity.

There were some truly wince-inducing pooled images being wired in from Jamaica of Kate and William in Trench Town. We’ve had Boris Johnson looking dishevelled, lonely, or both at the Nato summit. Or winning the gurning competition in the House of Commons on Wednesday. And of course the awful Instagram work of the team of Rishi “standing by the side of the people” Sunak.

In fact the chancellor of the exchequer couldn’t quite get standing by the side of a petrol pump right, looking cheerfully on as he pumped some unleaded into a modest car that didn’t actually belong to him (rather, apparently, someone working at the Sainsbury’s he was visiting). This was followed up by an Alan Partridge-like sequence where he clearly didn’t know how to use a contactless card. Remarkable, really, that an exercise designed to show how much he was in contact with the cost-of-living crisis had precisely the opposite effect: the contactless chancellor, in that sense, and inviting the now commonplace observation that he is a millionaire, with his wife being worth even more. She is said to be richer than the Queen, you know.

It illustrates a simple truth, which is that no amount of artfulness can stop the truth cheekily poking its nose into a contrived and ridiculous attempt at PR. Sunak at the petrol station was bad, and in its way worse than Ed Miliband’s existential struggle with a bacon sandwich ahead of local elections in 2014. It is rare indeed, and surprisingly so, for spin doctors – communications specialists, supposedly – to spot a catastrophe in the making. An exception was when Philip Hammond, then chancellor, wanted to highlight the government’s ambitions for hi-tech industry and proposed to take a trip in an autonomous vehicle, with no one at the wheel. It has been reported that at the last minute someone realised it would be the perfect metaphor for Theresa May’s troubled “driverless government”, and the stunt was called off.

The wonder is that Sunak and his personal image-makers haven’t learned from their past mistakes, such as the one a few years ago where our conscientious, head boy of a chancellor, was photographed working hard on his next Budget with a strong coffee by his side, like he was pulling an all-nighter before he presented this fiscal plans and political vision to the nation. Yet all anyone noticed was the unusual cup, which, it turned out, cost upwards of £160. Six months into a devastating pandemic, Sunak was accused of a “staggering lack of self-awareness”. His only defence was that the gadget was a gift from his wife. The Independent pointed out that the Ember Bluetooth-enabled “charging coaster” comes with its own app and is “one for health and tech junkies”, which sounds about right.

Sunak might also have recalled the derision rained down on George Osborne when he tried a similar stunt, this time with a hamburger and chips sitting by his side in the Treasury. Of course, the media wanted to know where Osborne – who was implementing an austerity programme – buys his burgers. Predictably enough, it’s not McDonald’s or Burger King, but from Byron, home of the “gourmet burger”, costing around £10, a lot of money back in the pre-inflationary time of 2013. His plea that “McDonald’s doesn’t deliver” – unlike now – didn’t say much for the man who at one point wanted to tax our Greggs hot pasties.

Osborne was also responsible for the brief fashion of the “power stance”. The idea that a figure such as Osborne himself, David Cameron, Sajid Javid or Theresa May would suddenly become alpha if they stood tall, head held high with their legs splayed apart, was a strange one to many and the practice soon ceased. Let us hope that the diminutive Sunak doesn’t try to revive it for his next Instagram post, as part of his medium-term leadership plan. It might finish his ambitions.