Ross Clark Ross Clark

Boris and Carrie’s staged picture is a PR masterstroke

Whatever you think of Boris Johnson’s ability to be Prime Minister you have to admire the PR skills of Carrie Symonds. Last Thursday evening an event occurred which could seriously damage Boris’ chances of winning the Tory party leadership contest – a domestic row between the couple in which the police were called to her flat. Unsurprisingly, it dominated the news agenda over the weekend. In a sense it still is way up the news agenda. But over the past 36 hours the focus has subtly changed. The ‘scandal’ is no longer what was said, and thrown, in an upstairs flat in Camberwell last Thursday, but the provenance of a soft-focus photo of the couple – apparently all smiles again – sitting in a Sussex garden.

On LBC radio this morning Nick Ferrari challenged Boris repeatedly over the photograph, suggesting that it couldn’t have been taken over the weekend because it didn’t show his hair in its current state.

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