Britain’s Business Secretary has caused controversy after posting an image of himself with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson airbrushed out.
Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party government’s current Business Secretary, has come under fire after publishing an image of himself with his old boss Boris Johnson artificially deleted from the picture.
The post — which has since been deleted by the senior government official — has drawn comparisons to the old Soviet Union practice of airbrushing important figures out of photographs after they were purged by Communist dictator Joseph Stalin.
According to a report by UK state-owned broadcaster the BBC, Shapps posted an image of himself with a number of other individuals at Spaceport Cornwall on Monday.
This is insane. First, Shapps removed Boris Johnson from the picture of his tweet, and then he deleted the tweet. And it's just the second day after recess. What a time to be alive. pic.twitter.com/FnJSZK6I4h
— Antonello Guerrera (@antoguerrera) January 10, 2023
However, keen-eyed netizens quickly realised that the image had actually originally been posted back in 2021 and that it had originally also included then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who appears to have been airbrushed out of the re-posted picture.
“Why has former PM Boris Johnson been removed from this photo?” asked one BBC journalist early on Tuesday before the image was deleted.
According to a report by respected Westminster muckraker site Guido Fawkes, a source close to Shapps has denied that the politician had any idea that the image was edited to remove the former Conservative Party leader.
“He removed it as soon as it was pointed out,” the source claimed. “Obviously he wouldn’t endorse anyone rewriting history by removing the former Prime Minister from a picture.”
“He was proud to serve in Boris Johnson’s Government,” the source went on to say.
Boris Johnson deleted from history like Yezhov was by Stalin pic.twitter.com/fjVTwn5ySH
— JamesHeartfield (@JamesHeartfield) January 10, 2023
Intentional or not, a number of British netizens have not responded well to the gaff, with one commentator describing the entire situation as “insane”.
Others have opted to make light of the fiasco, with multiple more edits of the photograph being posted online, with one showing Boris Johnson hiding in the rocket in the background.
Another Twitter user decided to instead “fix” the image by instead inserting the UK’s current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, haphazardly into the photograph instead.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.