Fact check: An image of Rishi Sunak in front of a Morrisons logo was altered

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Louise Thomas

Editor

An image of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak which was repeatedly shared on social media appeared to show his head blocking out the letters R, I and S in the logo of supermarket chain Morrisons.

As a result, it appeared that the unobscured portion of the sign behind the leader of the Conservatives read “moron”.

Evaluation

This is an edited photograph.

Mr Sunak did stand in front of the Morrisons logo during a Downing Street Farm To Fork Summit on May 14 2024. However, in the original photograph the Prime Minister’s head covered a different section of the sign and the remaining letters visible did not spell out a slur.

The facts

The original image was taken by Reuters news agency photographer Toby Melville at the Downing Street summit on May 14 and distributed by visual media company Getty Images.

In the picture, Mr Sunak can be seen holding a loaf of bread while wearing a red tie and white shirt.

His pose, outfit, facial expression and the loaf of bread clearly match the edited photograph, apart from the changes to the background.

The edited photo has been widened, with what appear to be Morrisons employees laughing and smiling added around Mr Sunak.

The three employees appear to have been cut from another photo from the event taken by Simon Walker and posted on the official Number 10 Downing Street Flickr account on May 14.

In the altered image, Mr Sunak’s shoulders appear particularly blurry against the green background, whereas in both of the original photographs the edge of his white shirt is sharply defined in that area, which is an indication of photo manipulation.

The background and the position of the Morrisons logo has also been changed to appear to show the letters MOR and ON behind the Prime Minister.

The “gettyimages” watermark over the photograph has been changed to “B3ta images” – a reference to an online message board where the doctored photo was also posted.

A social media user claimed credit for the creating the edited image, which was uploaded by someone with the same username to the b3ta board at 10.31pm on May 23.

Links

Post on X sharing edited image (archived)

Second post on X sharing edited image (archived)

Third post on X sharing edited image (archived)

Original photograph (archived)

Photograph of the employees (archived)

Thread by X user taking credit for the edited photograph (first and second archive)

Post on b3ta board (archived)