Liz Truss’s leadership launch kicked off on Thursday, but it was slightly marred when she attempted to make an authoritative exit at the end.
The foreign secretary outlined her plans for premiership, including a pledge to cut taxes and “level up in a Conservative way”, to a room of her supporters.
When she’d completed her speech and taken the media’s questions, she smiled and thanked the room before walking confidently towards the cameras, through the crowds, amid loud applause.
But, it seemed she was walking in the wrong direction.
She looked around, clearly confused, before hastily walking back the way she came. She managed to locate the exit this time, luckily, and darted left through the crowds again with a similarly confident walk.
Eagle-eyed Twitter user James Davies also noticed in the same footage that some people standing to the side of the room, appeared to be giggling at the blunder. It’s worth noting that these figures are reporters, not her staff.
Truss is known for the occasional gaffe. A particularly memorable one was when she excitedly talked about pork markets during a speech, or when she recently slipped up and promised to “bang the dumb” for Britain.
She once accidentally sat on then-fellow minister Sajid Javid’s lap in the Commons, too.
Truss came third in the first Tory leadership ballot on Wednesday, behind Rishi Sunak – who is currently the frontrunner – and Penny Mordaunt.
Her allies have insisted she is not the “continuity” candidate for Boris Johnson.
Yet, she has been backed by the outgoing prime minister’s allies, Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, which only reinforced the idea that she is Johnson’s ideological successor.
Truss has also been accused of trying to impersonate Margaret Thatcher through replicating famous photos of the former Conservative PM abroad.
Another gaffe came from her misunderstanding of where the Baltic and Black seas are back In February.
She told the BBC Sunday Morning show “we are supplying and offering extra support into our Baltic allies across the Black Sea”, only to be mocked by Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson for her geography for forgetting these seas are 700 miles apart.