Twitter gets stroppy over Cameron’s faked poppy
DOWNING Street was ridiculed by Twitter users last night after doctoring a picture of David Cameron to make it look like he was wearing a poppy.
Staff added the fake flower to an existing picture of the Prime Minister to show his support for war veterans ahead of Remembrance Sunday.
But clumsy spin doctors failed to put the poppy on the Tory leader’s lapel – and also made it appear extra large. The use of computer trickery was branded ‘disrespectful’ and a ‘cheap’ publicity stunt by war veterans and the public.
The picture was removed minutes after it was posted on the ‘10 Downing Street’ Facebook page. However, aides refused to apologise and blamed the doctored image on a ‘technical oversight’.
Twitter users were quick to capitalise on the gaffe, mocking the edited photo with versions of their own. One showed a poppy of gigantic proportions, while another covered Mr Cameron’s suit in dozens of the red flowers. Critics also said Mr Cameron should receive the same criticism as Jeremy Corbyn, who recently suggested he may not wear a red poppy at Sunday’s Cenotaph ceremony.
Major Charles Heyman, a retired army officer and defence expert, called the decision to alter the photo ‘foolish’ and said the Conservatives risked alienating core voters. ‘Remembrance Sunday is a very solemn day and a huge number of people feel a strong connection to the Armed Forces,’ he said. ‘This is a very, very foolish thing to have done and anybody with any sense should have known that this would be picked up and criticised.’
He also warned politicians not to fake a sense of reverence by ‘pulling the wool over the public’s eyes’. Labour MP Simon Danczuk also criticised the alteration, which appeared to involve Photoshop – a computer program used to modify images. He said: ‘It is disappointing to say the least that our country’s leader would stoop to the level of using Photoshop on what is a very sensitive issue. You would have hoped that those around him had more sense than to carry out what can only be described as an unseemly and inappropriate act.’
Members of the public waded into the row, with one writing: ‘How disrespectful to Photoshop a poppy. Apology needed.’ Another described the doctored picture as ‘cheap’. The gaffe emerged when Downing Street updated a picture of Mr Cameron yesterday in an attempt to mark the Poppy Appeal, run by the Royal British Legion to
‘Unseemly and inappropriate’
raise funds for war veterans. After removing the altered photograph, aides changed the picture to an unedited image of the Prime Minister sporting a poppy.
A Downing Street source: ‘ This was a technical oversight and the picture has now been taken down.’
Mr Corbyn, chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, alarmed Labour MPs in September when he suggested he might wear a white ‘peace’ poppy to the Remembrance Sunday event – but later backtracked.