Another day, another gaffe. Only this time it’s the Labour party in the firing line, not so long after the launch of its brand new TikTok account. It has been live for all of four days and Starmer’s army has been busy getting to work on their latest form of social media self-promotion — posting 30 videos, gathering 75,900 followers and amassing 1.5 million likes.
But it’s not all been plain sailing for the Sir Keir’s lefty lot. Labour’s comms team seems to have gotten a little ahead of itself in its rush to take the platform by storm and there are concerns the party may have, er, broken some rather important rules in the process. Quick to mock Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s national service plans — in which Britain’s 18-year-olds would have to either carry out a year’s work of full-time placement in the armed forces, or one weekend per month for a year volunteering in their community — the opposition party has had fun invoking a cast of characters from Cilla Black to Shrek to help batter their opponents. Keir’s Starmtroopers may have crossed a line, however, when they posted a clip of the infamous letter scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The clip, which shows hundreds of letters exploding out of the Dursley’s chimney after Harry’s intolerable relatives try to prevent him attending Hogwarts, is captioned: ‘Point of view: You didn’t respond to your National Service letter on your 18th birthday.’ Ho ho ho.
While the clip went down a treat on social media, with users reposting across Twitter and Instagram, Labour may have fallen foul of the movie’s production company. The party has now taken the viral clip down — but not before several thousands of its TikTok followers saw it first. Could it be down to copyright concerns? Mr S has reached out to Warner Bros to see if they have any advice for Labour’s rather excitable social media team, while the party has not yet responded to Steerpike. It’s all rather awkward for a party whose leader, just yesterday, couldn’t resist laughing at Sunak’s own campaign slip-ups. Don’t get too cocky now, Keir…
Comments