The political value of cheese

What’s that in the BBC’s The UK year in pictures? Why, it’s a Liberal Democrat by-election victory photo stunt.

And what’s not in the BBC’s list? Keir Starmer’s photo op on the same day in a car park in the Wakefield constituency.

It was the same story too with Matt Chorley’s recent end-of-year quiz on Times Radio. The blue door, not the car park, got to be a question.

A reminder that though many party members love to bemoan the cheesiness of such photo stunts, when they’re done well they hugely extend the publicity for the story that beget them.

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