At the end of November 2023, a video featuring the British Prime Minister circulated on Telegram channels, allegedly proving that the politician is so far from the voters that he does not have basic skills in using tools. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
In a viral video, the head of the British government, Rishi Sunak, is captured at a table in a certain workshop. The girl sitting on the left hand of the politician hands him a hammer, and the prime minister begins to hit a certain object with it, but not with the striking side (the striker), but with the side. Sunak’s interlocutor smiles and nods approvingly.
Russian-speaking bloggers ridiculed the behavior of the British prime minister, convicting him of his inability to handle the simplest instrument and his isolation from the lives of ordinary people. Similar posts appeared, in particular, in the Telegram channels of TV presenters Vladimir Solovyov (236,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and Ruslana Ostashko (109,000), as well as channels "Lentach"(156,000), "Putin on Telegram"(146,000), Voblya (136,000), "Pool N3"(124,000), "Militarist" (113,000) and "Banks, money, two offshores"(108,000). The authors of a number of publications, commenting on the video, did not mince words: “The whole world knows that even a hare can be taught to smoke. Now the whole world knows that Sunak's monkey cannot be taught to use a hammer."Yakov Kedmi"), "After what the British Prime Minister did with the hammer, he was obliged to marry him" (360tv), “When you didn’t hold anything heavier than a transgender dick in your hands” (“Alexander Semchenko"). Some media outlets also covered the news (for example, “Constantinople"), as well as users Facebook*, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
On November 23, Sunak visited West Yorkshire, where he met with representatives of small businesses in the town of Farsley. Among them was jeweler Emma White, who was captured in the viral video. “We mostly talked about decorations, and he even forged a star for a little Christmas decoration,” told girl newspaper Yorkshire Evening Post. It was this episode that ended up in the video.
In the Russian-language segment of social networks, the recording went viral in two versions: short (7 seconds) and long (17 seconds). In the first case, the dialogue between Sunak and White is not heard, it is drowned out by a voice-over - this fragment broadcast on the British television channel ITV. Short video active distributed critics of Sunak in the UK, primarily representatives of the opposition Labor Party.
After this version of the video went viral, journalists turned attention that the events were taken out of context. On a longer recording, a dialogue is heard between the politician and the businesswoman. She hands him a hammer lying flat, to which Sunak asks in surprise: “Oh, sideways?” (“Oh, sideways?” - English) Having received an affirmative answer, Sunak begins to wield the hammer in accordance with the recommendation received (and even hits harder when the girl asks for it). However, the authors of Russian-language Telegram channels were not at all embarrassed by this dialogue, which was simple from the point of view of the English language, and they distributed it with the same presentation as Sunak’s British opponents in the case of the trimmed version.
An even longer recording broadcast by the BBC shows White sitting next to the politician not only verbally giving him advice, but also directly pointing her finger at the side of the gavel and only then giving it to Sunak.
Yorkshire entrepreneur several times commented situation on your Instagram account*. “The world has gone crazy! <…> Just in case, this is how you use a good ironing hammer to do a job like this,” wrote it's November 25th. A few days later, in an interview with a local newspaper, the jeweler explained, that she simply did not have with her a tool that should have been used when working with the technique shown in the video, and the one that she eventually gave to the Prime Minister is intended for other purposes and its striker should remain smooth.
While the British media (e.g. The Guardian And The Independent) wrote about how Labor began to distribute a cropped and therefore misleading version of the video, Russian publications vying with each other told about how stood up for Sunak official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova. IN post in her Telegram channel, the speaker of the Russian Foreign Ministry correctly retold the story, and then, based on this one incident, made the following conclusion: “Exactly today, at the time of the publication of this manipulative post by Labour, Rishi Sunak became Rashi Sunak, from the word Russia. This is exactly what the West is doing to Russia, when they take certain fragments of videos, audio recordings, pieces of quotes taken out of context, talk only about some part of our steps, and present all this with the opposite of the original meaning.” This publication by Zakharova reposted to his channel, in particular, Vladimir Solovyov, who ten hours earlier posted a video there with the British Prime Minister “not knowing how to use a hammer.”
*Russian authorities think Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in the Russian Federation are prohibited.
Cover photo: YouTube screenshot
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