A Conservative member of the Scottish parliament was very publicly trolled by the official Holyrood Twitter account, and (accidentally) compared to a vegetable...
It all started when Stephen Kerr was going to lead to a members’ business debate focusing on “gene-modification and gene-editing” on Tuesday, after a research institute predicted that gene-editing tech could pump more vitamin C into potatoes.
Unfortunately, this message was not full conveyed in the graphic promoting the debate, which read: “Stephen Kerr: A Potato With More Vitamin C Than a Lemon.”
The MSP for Central Scotland – who used to be the MP for Stirling – was quick to clarify to parliament that he was “not a potato”, and later tweeted: “I’ve been called worse!”
But, Twitter was always going to latch onto this particular graphic, sooner or tater.
And it didn’t take long for the social media platform to jump into action with its own jokes.
It then kicked off a Twitter thread of politicians’ names as vegetables puns, started by Times Radio’s Matt Chorley.
People replied called former cabinet minister Jacob Rees Mogg ‘Jacob Peas Mogg’, current prime minister Rishi Sunak ‘Radishi Sunak’, and Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney ‘John Swedey’.
It also comes after Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, was famously paired with a lettuce. The Economist claimed the number of days she was in office without turmoil were numbered at just seven – the same length of time as a lettuce’s shelf life.
Then, the Daily Star newspaper set up a live cam to see who would last longer, the vegetable or Truss.
She resigned a week after the YouTube footage was set up, meaning many joked the lettuce was the winner.