Rishi Sunak’s Tory leadership run got off to a less than promising start after one of his backers accidentally posted instructions he appeared to have received from the campaign.
On Friday, the ex-chancellor announced he will stand via a slicky-produced video that has become his trademark, alongside a #Ready4Rishi hashtag.
Paul Maynard, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, swiftly said he is backing Sunak’s push to succeed Boris Johnson – but didn’t fully grasp what he was supposed to do on Twitter.
In a now deleted tweet, the apparent instructions said: “If you’re happy, can you tweet and include the hashtag Ready4Rishi, and crucially the website Ready4rishi.com, and then your infographic below.”
This is how it should have gone ...
At least Oliver Dowden got it right...
Another Sunak supporter couldn’t quite get it either...
It brought to mind the time Jeremy Corbyn accidentally read out the instruction “strong message here” during a speech, and footballer Victor Anichebe’s “tweet something like” classic.
All Sunak’s early backers shared a link to the campaign website, www.ready4rishi.com.
It appears that a site with a slightly different name, www.readyforrishi.com, which redirects to the official campaign page, was set up in December 2021.
Sunak’s team said domains are bought all the time, adding that they had been transferred a number of them.