Why it is always about political image when it comes to Boris Johnson

How can some innocent snaps of a dog playing in the snow have got Boris Johnson into trouble?

Well, these pictures were of Johnson’s Jack Russell cross Dilyn, and they were taken at taxpayers’ expense by photographers employed to “document the work of the prime minister and cabinet” and distributed on the official 10 Downing Street Flickr feed.

They were part of a growing flood of images produced by No 10 and offered free of charge to the media to provide a glimpse of life behind the scenes of government.

Other images posted recently have included the PM chatting on the phone with Joe Biden, raising his hands aloft after sealing the EU trade deal and clapping for the NHS with fiancee Carrie. As well as Matt Hancock rolling his sleeves up at a curiously maskless meeting of Department of Health officials and endless snaps of cabinet meetings, press conferences and various ministers visiting hospitals and vaccine centres around the country.

And what could be wrong with that? Isn’t it a good thing for the public to witness these moments?

There is a growing wave of criticism that public money is effectively being used to burnish Johnson’s image, while independent photographers from newspapers and agencies such as the Press Association are excluded from events – with coronavirus restrictions often used as an excuse.

Picture editors face a dilemma over whether to use the images provided. A lot of them are great photos, lively and full of character and far from the stiff line-ups and handshakes offered under Theresa May or David Cameron, who first set up the Flickr feed when he arrived in Downing Street.

But the fact remains that there is something qualitatively different about an image created by a photographer employed by a politician to make him look good. Johnson now has no less than three snappers based in No 10 and paid from the public purse. One of them – Andy Parsons – was briefly employed by Cameron as his personal photographer, before being switched to the Conservative party payroll because it was regarded as an inappropriate use of public funds.

Johnson is, of course, a gift to photographers. He often puts himself into positions – on a zip wire, behind the wheel of a digger – which are guaranteed to produce striking images. He pulls faces, rolls his eyes, gurns and gesticulates in a way which gets the flashbulbs popping.

But oddly, it’s always the press photographers who catch him with his head in his hands, or grimacing with worry. On the official feed, he may look concerned, but he has a tendency to do it in a steely and determined way.

Readers who aren’t too distracted by Dilyn looking charming may ask themselves whether they want their leader portrayed the way he wants to look or the way that he is seen by independent observers.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor