As far as “themes of the pandemic” go, there’s few that appear with the same reliability as the weekly “clap for carers” controversy that always seems to happen.

Remember those images of huge crowds (yes, crowds) flouting social distancing advice to clap for the NHS? And who could forget Nigel Farage’s weird video… and Charles and Camilla’s haunting version *shudders*.

Well now the new Leader of the Opposition has found himself in the middle of the weekly “clap for carers” furore. Welcome to the club, Sir Keir Starmer...

So what happened?

A tweet went viral that accused Starmer of saying “did you get what you need?” to a cameraman out of shot as he partook in the weekly clap for key workers. The footage was broadcast on Sky News and the tweet was framed in a way that seemed to be calling Starmer out.

The tweet generated hundreds of retweets before, rather dramatically, the cameraman who Starmer was supposedly talking to swooped in to put the record straight.

Marc Steven said that Starmer asked him as a way to clear the path to bring his daughter – who was out of shot, presumably to avoid being filmed while still participating in the clap – back over from across the road.

And he then tweeted some footage which appears to back up his version of events. Phew.

It was a pretty dramatic reveal. But we love a bit of drama, to be honest.

People were thankful that the cameraman took the time to clear things up and sent sympathy Starmer’s way for what seemed like a no-win situation.

Thankfully this particular round of the “clapping controversy” was over quickly and… wasn’t actually all that controversial once the facts came to light.

Now we can get on to talking about stuff that matters… right?

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