Image copyright PA Image caption No more dirty politics?
It’s that time of year when politicians rush around trying to get some headline-grabbing thing or other out of a press conference or election debate.
But what makes you stand out and stop attention from being drawn to other things?
What then do you think the characters were all talking about in a photograph which circulated on Twitter on Sunday night?
That was the first tweet to suggest that it was political campaign photography, and it showed a heavily altered version of a previous picture which showed one of Tory leader Boris Johnson with Prime Minister Theresa May and other politicians.
Boris appeared in the altered picture – with grey hair and a beige jacket.
Emma Reynolds (@EmmaReynoldsSI) tweeted: “The vaccination map shows a 3 way swing against vaccination in the UK…how do you explain that? [sic]”
She said the names of politicians on the vaccination map reveal the view they have of vaccination.
Huffington Post found it to be a spoof of an alarming thing the vaccine editor posted on his Twitter feed as well as a sign of the times.
https://twitter.com/Matthew_M_Willibes/status/929510540946094445
The vaccination map – which the same campaigners declared themselves not responsible for – was always going to be talked about.
But the first reaction to it when it first made the rounds of Twitter did not provide a clue about the political connection.
That tweet went around and round and round.
But the most plausible interpretation of the imagery in the offending image is that it shows three reasons why vaccination – along with the buildings around – have caught people’s attention in the latest election campaign.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A map of the UK shows 4.3 million children have not been vaccinated
First there’s the extraordinary proximity of Donald Trump. Is the president a serious contender for the Tory leadership?
Or have people just started to suspect he may be serious this time around?
The school picture very similarly attracted attention.
So what does a politician have to do to gain attention in this political climate?
Image copyright PA Image caption This is not the first time that ‘The vaccination map’ has gained publicity
What if we took the example of Boris Johnson and Brexit? Well, the politician with the most to lose from not talking about Donald Trump has to be him.
Image copyright PA Image caption It’s an image most notable for the lack of children in it
But the Twitter abuse he has suffered from right-wing supporters of Trump has been brutal and unrelenting.
His fellow MPs could stop him talking about Trump because it won’t get a great reaction in the general election campaign.
Someone else who has found himself at risk of being caught out by the immunisation map is Jeremy Corbyn.
There’s been speculation he could be gearing up to oust Mrs May and take control of the Tory party.
He recently vetoed a plan to keep fox hunting alive and upset a hardline leaver by siding with the Liberal Democrats on their proposed referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
But if the vaccination map comes to be regarded as a sharp instrument to trouble certain politicians, might Mr Corbyn now be forced to change his tune on one of his most passionate political beliefs?
Whatever the more disturbing reason for the conspiracy theory, the vaccination map certainly has a strange way of attracting attention.