Boris Johnson’s Vote Conservative Actually pastiche of a scene from Love Actually has caused quite a stir. Not as much of a stir as the video of him refusing to look at a photo of a four-year-old forced to lie on the floor of an overstretched hospital has.
The jaw-dropping video of ITV reporter Joe Pike trying to get the PM to own up to the NHS crisis while the PM snatches his phone off him has led to charges of a lack of empathy and honesty in the last days of a general election campaign in which the NHS is polling as almost an important issue as Brexit for people now.
It has also been viewed by 10 million people now, many times more than the Conservative’s “Brexit, Actually” pastiche, despite it being shared by senior Tory figures and right wing influencers.
However they’re not the only people to share it and as always happens on social media the #VoteConservativeActually hashtag has been subverted by Brits online for an opportunity to moan about what is on offer. Actually.
This version is probably better than the original. (Sorry Boris Johnson and Hugh Grant.)
People are offering to fix the video by adding some missing cards.
Including the photo of four year old Jack Williment-Barr forced to lie on a pile of coats on the floor of an overstretched Leeds hospital with suspected pneumonia that Johnson refused to look at.
People have offered to fix what the PM is sharing on his signs to reflect the facts and figures of a decade of Conservative and coalition government.
Or what it would contain if Tories’ real plans were featured. Actually.
Others are pointing out that the video is a higher budget rip off of a pastiche of that Love Actually scene made by Labour candidate for Tooting Rosena Allin-Khan who posted her “Election Actually” campaign vid on November 22. Actually.
And actor Hugh Grant, who played the Prime Minister in the original movie scene ripped off by the election campaign videos, today quipped about the amount of money spent on the Conservative’ , wondering how much of that was Russian – after revelations of huge donations to Johnson and the tory party from Putin cronies that could explain why they have sat on the Russian interference report until after the election.
The actor also noted the absence of a key card in the classic movie scene that is all about telling the truth.
Hugh Grant told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I thought it was quite well done, very high production values, but clearly the Conservative Party have an awful lot of money. Maybe that’s where the [Russian currency] rubles went.
“But I did notice that one of the cards from the original film that he didn’t hold up was the one where Andrew Lincoln held up a card saying, ‘Because at Christmas you tell the truth.’
“And I just wonder if the spin doctors in the Tory Party thought that was a card that wouldn’t look too great in Boris Johnson’s hands,” added the actor who is campaigning for people to vote tactically to defeat Conservative MPs in their constituencies.
Truth – or lack of it has dogged Boris Johnson’s election campaign, unsurprisingly. Boris Johnson has hit out that the constant questions about his trustworthiness during his General Election campaign make his “blood boil”.
The other video that has dogged Johnson’s campaign of course is the one that the Conservative party wouldn’t want people to share and are desperate to distract people’s attention from.