Hospital photo rocks campaign

A photo of a sick boy sleeping on a hospital floor because no beds were available has become one of the defining images of Britain’s bruising election campaign.

It forced Prime Minister Boris Johnson onto the defensive and ignited a fierce online debate over whether it was real or fake.

The boy, four-year-old Jack Williment-Barr, had been admitted to Leeds General Infirmary last week with suspected pneumonia. He eventually was diagnosed with flu and tonsillitis and then discharged, but not before he was photographed lying on the floor cushioned by a coat with an oxygen mask nearby. A red coat served as a blanket.

The story was splashed across Monday’s front page of the left-leaning national tabloid Daily Mirror, including the photo of Jack in his Spider-Man top under the headline, “Desperate.”

The photo and subsequent posts swept through British social media like a firestorm, injecting an unpredictable and explosive jolt into the intensifying political war of information just days ahead of Thursday’s election.

Jack’s story came to national attention in a newspaper article critical of the Conservative Party’s cuts to the U.K.’s national health service.

But then a Facebook post appeared, promoting a counternarrative.

“Very interesting. A good friend of mine is a senior nursing sister at Leeds Hospital,” the post began, and went on to spin the tale that the photo of Jack was a setup for the cameras.