Jawad Iqbal Jawad Iqbal

Ed Davey’s election stunts are going to backfire

Ed Davey (Photo: Getty)

The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, has come up with a novel way of ensuring his party gets greater coverage during the long weeks of the election campaign. His wheeze is to ensure that, each and every day, he is pictured doing something silly. 

It doesn’t help that the party’s leader appears to think that the election campaign is best treated as one big joke

On Tuesday, he was pictured repeatedly falling from a paddleboard on Windermere in Cumbria – a stunt to highlight the issue of sewage dumping, apparently. On Wednesday, he was on a bike, peddling down a steep hill, ostensibly en route to the party’s Welsh campaign launch. ‘Having a wheelie great time,’ he tweeted. 

Yesterday, he was in Frome, Somerset, where he was duly photographed riding down a children’s water slide in a large rubber ring. Afterwards, he described the experience as ‘really good fun.’ What voters make of it is anyone’s guess.

Written by
Jawad Iqbal

Jawad Iqbal is a broadcaster and ex-television news executive. Jawad is a former Visiting Senior Fellow in the Institute of Global Affairs at the LSE

Topics in this article

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in