What’s gone wrong with Rish!?
Happy New Year/Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi! An exciting year ahead for all of us at bak and we hope for you too. In our stating the obvious prediction for the new year, It looks increasingly likely that we’re heading for a May election. Maybe this why the PM has been generous to us all by gifting us with a very special Christmas video.
If you haven’t seen his Home Alone Christmas video don’t worry. We’ve seen it (between our fingers covering our eyes) so that you don’t have to. Whatever your politics it’s hard to understand what his comms team thought there was to gain from this spectacularly ill judged promo. For a while now Sunak’s comms has been characterised by heavily staged photo and video opps. This may have had some traction when he was a minister and being compared to the plodding image of Theresa May or the Wild West of Michael Goves’ forays into clubland. As Chancellor, YouGov polling showed by 59 per cent to 11 per cent that people thought Sunak was doing a good job, the best rating for a chancellor since Gordon Brown. His digital comms has been led by ‘social media wunderkind’ (according to The Tatler), Cass Horowitz. Marlborough educated Cass was allegedly introduced to the the Chancellor by No10 press adviser, Allegra Stratton before she was forced to resign over her bantz about the lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Is Cass still there, or has the no 10 digital machinery been taken over by a sleeper cell of situationist pranksters? Is Sunak even listening to his team anymore as they thrash around from reset to reset? Why doesn’t this video work and why if anything does it feed into an increasingly embedded public perception of the PM as being out of touch with the public mood, more interested in the slickness of his image than fixing ‘broken’ Britain?
As PM his team have set up constant photo opps with the general public to highlight him as a man of the people, perhaps conscious of the need to spin away from his image as a rich, entitled man-child totally out of kilter with the struggles of everyday life. These carefully managed public appearances have often gone very wrong, reinforcing this negative image. His fails on being able to use credit cards, suggesting a career in finance in The City to a homeless man, petrol pump disaster have created an impression of a man who is out of touch with the realities of everyday life. The awkward uncomfortable fails are not quite so frequent, presumably his team have learned from early horror shows (‘I’m a huge coke addict!’) and now steer him away from any spontaneous contact with members o the general public that haven’t been previously vetted.
Appearances with the great and the good of world politics and finance (Elon Musk 1-2-1 anyone - the man who’s knocked 71% off the value of the shares in X formerly Twitter - who ever thought that was a good idea) only serve to emphasise his lack of stature, in all senses of the word.
With opinion polls at rock bottom, what then to do? A final roll of the dice, from his bunker at Downing street, Sunak lines up the Panzers and his team unleash a Christmas Blitzkreig on an unsuspecting public: A Home Alone video to show that Rish! is just like us after all. Just another tech bro with squillions in his bank account but left alone at home on that special day.
Instead of the promised break through 81k have so far cringed through the video on Youtube. Unfortunately it manages to reinforce a few incredibly damaging ideas about Sunak rather than counter them.
1. It draws attention to the rumours that he is isolated and alone politically, without a political hinterland and with no friends, socially awkward and uncomfortable with other human beings (sub-text, he’s such a loner even his family would rather spend Christmas without him)
2. Rish! The cricketer. Where do we start with this? Who TF has a house big enough to have a corridor with a full sized wicket? The answer, Rish! This draws attention to his privilege.
2. The Coca-Cola stumps??? This sees him admitting to a massive coke habit in another cringe worthy opp with some teenagers. Rish! Clearly not aware of the laugh that everyone is now having at his expense. The City Boy who doesn’t understand the drugs reference he’s just made. Out of touch.
All in all the video’s just made a pretty good attempt at reinforcing the idea in the general public that our PM is a humourless, over privileged dork who has no idea how most of us are spending our Christmas, fretting over bills and arguing with the in-laws about who gets the remote control.
Can his team do anything at this stage to counter this prevailing image? Sunak came to power on the basis of being a competent technocrat with an eye for detail. Someone who can read and interpret a spreadsheet and manage a team. He was seen as being a steady pair of hands, just what the country needed after Boris Johnson the circus years. Perhaps that should be the emphasis from here on in. Less Rish! Man of the people, more Sunak the man you’d trust with your pocket money. The British people value authenticity and this feels like a more authentic version of the PM than the guy playing pranks at home when the grown ups are away.
Can’t wait for the election vids LOL.
Many thanks to John Crace for Rish!