Joke wears thin as the truth is hammered home

Social media often feels like entering a room full of stupid people, either having a big, shouty, stand-up row or smugly criticising anyone who fails to reach their own - imagined - moral standards. Or, in a notable case of online hysteria involving the Prime Minister last week, anyone who appears to use a tool incorrectly.

When footage emerged of Rishi Sunak using a hammer sideways during a visit to a jewellerymaking studio, it was like Christmas had come early for what used to be called the Twitterati.

The clip was gleefully shared as the perfect metaphor for Sunak’s incompetent leadership:

‘If he can’t even use a hammer properly, how can he govern the country?’; ‘General

Election now!’, etc.

Self-satisfied hilarity ensued.

Labour happily got in on the act, reminding us that Sunak was not the humble son of a toolmaker like their own leader. Even former Conservative MP

Nadine Dorries claimed it obviously showed the

Tory leader was out of touch with the real world (the real world of jewellery making, presumably).

Then someone bravely spoiled the party by pointing the braying hordes in the direction of unedited footage showing the PM being told beforehand to use the side of the hammer. Sunak was actually using a planishing hammer, which is used for smoothing off rough metal. Someone in Keir Starmer’s social media team should have checked with him first? Dorries backtracked by calling the earlier clip ‘fake news’, although it was never even news, just a bloke using a hammer.

As happens so often on social media, the truth failed to stem the tide of guffawing, with the video having ‘gone viral’ already. Whether anyone watching it will be moved to switch their vote in disgust at this apparent display of hammering ineptitude is still doubtful. Those of us who wish to see politics conducted in a more grown-up fashion are clearly in for a long wait. Those of us who wish people would stop being stupid on social media may as well give up.

‘As happens so often on social media, the truth failed to stem the tide of guffawing...’