Rishi Sunak has been the UK’s prime minister for more than a year. He took over 10 Downing Street after Liz Truss couldn’t outlast a head of lettuce in the fall of 2022. It does not seem, to me, like Sunak is popular or even respected, but he is seen as a somewhat “steadier hand” than Truss and Boris Johnson. Sunak wants to be loved though – he wants to be a popular prime minister, which is why he made a cutesy Christmas video in 10 Downing. This video has turned into a minor controversy this week. Here it is:
Merry Christmas from Downing Street 🎄 pic.twitter.com/cr0ZIdQmeR
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) December 25, 2023
First of all, does he think that people won’t recognize him if he takes off his tie? Who wears a slim-cut hoodie with a dress shirt and tie?? The Tory brain trust who put this video together did a terrible job, but that’s not the controversy. The controversy is over the “phone call” and Sunak saying “Harry, you’ve got the wrong number,” and then hanging up. It was likely supposed to be a reference to a British journalist named Harry Cole, who recently reported that Sunak’s private number had been leaked. The only reason I know about that Harry Cole story is because People Mag and other outlets explained the reference – if you’re not familiar with British political reporting, you would assume the “Harry” reference is about Prince Harry, arguably the most famous British man named “Harry.” So, now people are once again acting like Prince Harry is desperate to… call Downing Street? Call people in the UK? It makes no sense, but hey, the British prime minister got the attention he was desperately seeking. The Tory brain trust knew what they were doing too. #WrongNumberHarry is trending with derangers as I write this and it’s some of the nastiest projection out there.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Italy, Rome, December 16, 2023 : The Premier U.K., Rishi Sunak, participates at the meeting ‘Atreju 2023’.,Image: 830549317, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: **** World right excluding Italy ****, Model Release: no, Credit line: Stefano Carofei / Agenzia Sintesi / Avalon
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- 19/12/2023. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hosts a reception for the British Film Industry in 10 Downing Street.,Image: 831474996, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form. All images are Crown copyright and re-usable under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherw, Model Release: no, Credit line: Simon Dawson / Avalon
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- 22/12/2023. Lincoln, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets staff at the Lincolnshire Air Ambulance Headquarters as he meets local heroes ahead of Christmas.,Image: 831962625, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form. All images are Crown copyright and re-usable under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherw, Model Release: no, Credit line: Simon Dawson / Avalon
The derangers and Rishi are sad people. The derangers because of their obsession with Harry and Rishi because he’s so desperate to be liked and for people to believe he’s relatable and down to earth.
He meant Harry Cole, NOT Prince Harry.
Who is Harry Cole?
@Kittenmom…He is a British journalist for The Sun.
Yes, he reeks of desperation.
….and I don’t know why but he always makes me think of an animated Pixar insect.
While he may be less awful than Johnson and Truss that is a mighty low bar. He hires terrible people to enact evil policies especially where vulnerable immigrants and refugees are concerned then saunters off to spend his wife’s money, act boyish, and pretend it has nothing to do with him. Bad, bad, bad.
He’s the POC Trump
This reminds me of the photo of Harry & Boris when Prince Harry was having last meetings with prime minister before leaving. Boris made a hugging gesture towards him, Harry was looking at him like Boris was an alien. These people are desperate of Harry’s attention and acknowledgement. Also, this is a weird way to gain voters by attacking Prince Harry who still has veterans’ support in UK.
The Harry that Rishi is talking to is Harry Cole, the political editor for the Sun and former boyfriend of Carrie Johnson. It has nothing to do with Prince Harry, Rishi’s not attacking him
@Amy Bee, do you believe they didn’t foresee that people would think he was talking about Prince Harry? Considering there is a revolving door between conservative government and Prince William’s office, I am gonna guess they knew that people would use this as a reason to mock Prince Harry.
@sevenblue: As Kaiser suggested it was perhaps a cynical attempt to get attention by using the name Harry but it was a play on a Sun report that Rishi Sunak’s old phone number was leaked. It’s supposed to show that Rishi had no hard feelings and that he can laugh at himself not an attack on Prince Harry. This is a nothing story aimed at boosting Rishi’s popularity not an attempt at mocking Harry. Everything is not about the Sussexes and the political crowd would have got the joke.
@sevenblue I’m not @Amy Bee, but I could definitely believe that Rishi Sunak’s people didn’t foresee that. When you’re in politics, it’s your whole world. You live in a bubble that’s for the average person to wrap their brain around. This was something that was recently a massive story in the political sphere, and he and others surrounding him assumed that *everyone* would get the reference.
This was obviously intended to be light, comedic video to show Sunak in a warm light, as opposed to the number-crunching seat-filler that everyone sees him as and that, well, he is. The last thing anyone wanted out of such a twee video was controversy.
To be honest, I don’t think most politicians in the UK spend much time thinking about the royals until they have to–or until they need to use them to distract from a scandal.
If you don’t know the backstory the first assumption is he’s mocking Prince Harry. I certainly thought he was and that IS the point…
lol. There are 2 Harries globally known: Harry Potter and Prince Harry. When you send a video out there where everyone can watch and talk to someone called “Harry” as a UK prime minister, people around the world would assume you are mocking Prince Harry. This is just very basic assumption any advisor around the PM would make. They either didn’t care or decided to play coy while fueling their conservative fans and derangers hatred towards Prince Harry.
The gag doesn’t work on that level, either.
@sevenblue I mean, you can think what you want, but I believe you’re putting far more thought into this than they did. It was most certainly a play on Harry Cole leaking his number.
It was just a “Home Alone” Christmas video, and likely an homage to a popular video Bill Clinton’s people made about him being alone in the White House at the end of his term in 2020.
It wasn’t meant for an audience of the “world.” It was for Brits and political folks. That’s why the joke about him bowling down Coke cans was in there, too. It wasn’t product placement; he’s known to be addicted to the drink. The ‘in’ jokes would’ve landed with the political crowd as intended.
I’m not a fan of Sunak’s or the Tories by any means, but I’m not seeing intentional malice here. Not everything is about the Sussexes.
You can’t stop people from becoming deranged about imagined slights, but you can stop yourself from getting worked up over them.
He could have said “Mr. Cole” then to avoid any confusion. He has no political advisors at all who could see an issue?
Carrie has a type, doesn’t she? Also reminds me of that photo where Boris and a bunch of hangers-on are in a plane, and Harry Cole is looking at him with an adoration that turned my stomach.
@Kara C, we’re dealing with politicians and the BM. Are we to believe that neither understand saying Harry means anything other than Harry Cole to the UK public? Rishis knew what he meant but also let the implication out there.
I’m feeling for Larry the Cat who had no choice in participating in this video. Sunak is using Larry the Cat’s popularity. Sunak is a dog owner.
I hope Larry the Cat writes an op-ed on these shenanigans.
Larry is a cat, and as such is unable to understand the concepts of left wing, rightwing, royalty, democracy, social media etc. Please can we stop pretending animals are like people. They don’t have values, they just want food, warmth and to have young.
This is a complete rip-off of the “The Final Days” video Bill Clinton did for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2000. Rishi Sunak could only dream of having the approval ratings Bill Clinton had in his final year of office. https://youtu.be/PbbUYhyoWz8?si=qNsT7RIZbl0Wfz8F
I find him so creepy and strange. He’s so awkward.
Rishi and his Tory cronies seem to think this comes across as him being the lovable buffoon, but I think Rishi is actually a lot more dangerous than BoJo, the incompetent oaf.
Just because Rishi is so tiny, some people see him as cute. But he and his equally entitled billionaire friends have a malignant streak, and only want the worst for (e.g. disabled, or chronically ill) people. They don’t care about poverty, hunger and malnutrition, as long as their profit margin is not affected.
Also Rishi manhandled Larry. Look how uncomfortable that poor cat looks. Animal abuse!
It’s obvious that Larry, who has ruled 10 Downing Street ever since he got there, doesn’t want to be in Rishi’s arms at all.
Maybe they bribed Larry with stacks of Dreamies to let Rishi hold him for a second or two. But no way was Larry down with Rishi kissing him.
Larry should sue for cruel and unusual treatment! No Consent!
#JusticeforLarrytheCat
🐈😾🐈
I love JusticeforLarry. Larry just had surgery in the last couple of months. Rishi should not have been shaking him-in good health or bad. I hope a loving, caregiver to Larry gave him a lovely, warm spa bath after THAT interaction. Larry was used as a prop-clout chaser Rishi.
I just think it’s really funny that royalists are so obsessed with Prince Harry and that he consumes so many of their waking thoughts that they cannot comprehend that another Harry might exist and a reference to a Harry must be about him. They’re like swifties. This is their entire life.
But then they’ll turn around five minutes later and say he’s irrelevant.
My question is why was #10 Downing Street featuring Coca Cola as a prominent product placement in this ridiculous skit? Was that free advertising or was someone paid for that? Tell me.
Rishi is a self confessed Coke addict. A fact he revealed in an interview with two school boys. Specifically he prefers the Mexican production as it is made with cane sugar, but he has recently cut back to one can a week.
What @Lady Digby said is true.
I’m no fan of Rishi Sunak’s, but this is a ‘thing’ of his that’s known in the political sphere.
It’s another thing that leads me to believe that his people put this little video together within their little bubble, thinking everyone would simply ‘get’ it. But no one who doesn’t follow politics got it because no one outside of that sphere knows, or cares, about Rishi Sunak. (Few inside do…)
They wrote a little skit to make Rishi look human, and it totally backfired.
I love that the schoolboys involved titled that video ’24 minutes of cringe with Rishi Sunak’.
Not me thinking immediately of him on Bugle, lmaooooo, also fits.
Cute, but not going to override the beating he took from the Labour party at Prime Minister’s Questions over the last month, and all of those videos are online too.
Sorry (not sorry) this man is a first class prat. He (and his advisors) knew exactly what they were doing by a saying “Harry”. With all the reporters, from all the different papers that WOULD call the press office, why pick “Harry”, because Sunak is chasing votes, that’s why. Every time I see this idiot, all I can think of is *Roland Rat “
who is their comms team? u don’t have to respond to these outright but pump out some good news articles or press? honestly what are they doing. it’s been negative article after article for the last month and half. don’t react, don’t explain doesn’t really work even for the RF…
I wonder if they have any idea how bad they look as a country attacking a young man because he felt leaving was his only alternative for his family and himself. You’d think Harry was a terrorist or had tried to kill a political leader or other important person. All he did was leave, I think the hate comes from fear. There are entire industries built up around that cosplay royal family. Careers (royal experts) created around that family, columnists, books sold, etc. Its the mystery that sells, the nod to the history of British royalty. But the people at the center of that cosplay has grown accustomed to being pampered protected and their ego fed and nourished, as they sat on their ass and do nothing. They hate Harry because he left the board and took himself away from them. No expert no books written about him with any authority, he is one less vein to feed on and it’s all,her fault. Had Meghan not come along, and given him the support, love and strength he needed he would still be Williams punching bad and shield him and his mistress, Charles shield for him and Camilla to get good press the experts, publishers and UK gossip rags to make money off of him. They need to make an example of him to the other royals. No matter what they do or say about you or your wife and child, it’s worse if you leave.
Jeezuz…Rishi Sunak is tanking Britain’s reputation on the world stage. The Tory party can’t even get their sh*t together to lower energy, food, and medical costs or boost investment, and they certainly aren’t able to provide climate change leadership. So they come up with this nonsensical video trying and failing to make Sunak look more relatable and down to earth to the public. Appalling.
I have loved and read Celebitchy for many years. With much respect, this website really does appear to be spon-con from the British royal family. Not just those who are famous and celebrity-adjacent, but random Danes and journalists with their face all over this page. Obviously you’re getting much traffic and engagement from the UK, so perhaps the solution is changing the name of the site to reflect the new direction of the content?
I don’t understand this post.
Why do they need to change the name ?
What Danes? The Danish? Where are their faces? Adverts?
So many questions. What am I missing?
Isn’t this video a take of a scene in Love Actually where Hugh Grant cast as the prime minister is by himself at 10 Downing? Can the Royal Family or the Tories think of anything original?
Yep, this is a rip from that and Home Alone.
Why would Harry call #10 Downing Street? Why?
Bunch of stirring up trouble, this is baloney.
And the film clip is giving me the feeling that the current PM sees himself as a mix of Hugh Grant in Love Actually and as Kevin in Home Alone.
Sad, little PM, isn’t he?
Ish!