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Campaign cock-up of the week: Milkshake brings all the boys to Farage

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Nigel Farage has urged Kemi Badenoch to apologise or face “action” after she accused Reform UK of “fakery” over its membership numbers.
Nigel Farage has urged Kemi Badenoch to apologise or face “action” after she accused Reform UK of “fakery” over its membership numbers.

In this column, former No 10 advisor Giles Kenningham analyses the worst comms screw-ups of the election campaign. So what took the prize for the worst PR gaffe this week?

What is it with politicians and food? Ed Miliband eating that infamous bacon sandwich. Peter Mandelson getting covered in custard at a carbon summit in 2009. And of course egging.  Pelting politicians with eggs is a long-standing tradition that dates back more than 50 years when the then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was hit with one by a frustrated Tory voter.

When I worked for David Cameron we carried a spare suit on the campaign trail just in case he got egged. Politicians have traditionally taken wildly different approaches to being egged. Ed Miliband laughed it off when he got struck out campaigning in 2013.Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott took a characteristically more robust approach punching the ‘egger’ earning him the nickname ‘two jabs.’

So when Nigel Farage got hit with a milkshake on Tuesday it would normally be a bit of a comms nightmare for most politicians. Within minutes the clip went viral. One wag quipped that the culprit was starting their national service early. Others joked that Farage was simply unlucky to be campaigning in a town where the McDonalds milkshake machine was working. Another simply superimposed the golden ratio on one of the renaissance-like images 

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, ENGLAND – MAY 20: Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage is escorted to a car after having what is thought to be milkshake thrown over him as he visits Northumberland Street in Newcastle Upon Tyne during a whistle stop UK tour on May 20, 2019 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. The visit to Newcastle comes ahead of the 2019 European elections in the United Kingdom which will take place on May 23. The Brexit Party is a pro-Brexit Eurosceptic political party formed in 2019. Nigel Farage, the former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, is campaigning for the Brexit Party’s contest for this month’s European Parliament elections. The Brexit Party is reported to be polling in front of Labour and the Conservatives for the European parliament elections. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

Did it hurt him? Not for one minute. Never let a crisis go to waste. Of course for Farage different rules apply and he’s often teflon. For him nearly all publicity is good publicity.

But he handled it perfectly, later posting a clip of himself drinking a McDonalds milkshake. To be fair he has previous on this. He got doused with a milkshake in 2019. Would I be surprised if Farage appears in the next McDonalds ad? I would put money on it.