At a time when everyone’s a paparazzo, kitted out not only with a high-res camera but their own distribution platform, no one must approach eating with more trepidation than politicians.
But in Australia, where the act of voting is intrinsically linked to the consumption of meat products in bread, it’s a hard photo op to avoid – and an even more difficult one to avoid fudging.
On the morning of election day, the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, was snapped tucking into a sausage sandwich – a fixture of the polling booth – at Strathfield North public school in western Sydney.
The cylindrical roll came with a side of Catch-22, and probably onions. Eat it lengthways, like everyone does, and create a rod for your own back for the waiting throngs on social media – viz this image of the New Zealand prime minister, John Key.
Australians were astounded when Bill Shorten ate a sausage from the side, but let's not forget the alternative pic.twitter.com/W5hRTwTiMp
— Chris (@Lukeurmyson) July 2, 2016
But eat it any other way and risk being painted as a politician so image conscious, out of touch or, frankly, weird that the simple consumption of food poses a problem.
Shorten went for the latter, holding the roll at each end and ploughing into it front teeth first in the style of a tenacious hamster.
Shorten is getting *butchered* for his sausage sanga eating skill. From the middle ok or top-to-tail only?#ausvotes pic.twitter.com/U8KqnvrKnQ
— AAP Video (@aap_video) July 2, 2016
The media and Twitter seized on his approach.
But... it doesn't look like a snag! Looks like he is battling with a bloody cob roll! #ausvotes #democracySausages https://t.co/pRMOTCxPPX
— Simply Bonnie (@BonnieMillen) July 2, 2016
is shorten one of those dudes who can't eat phallic shaped objects unless it's turned side on? it's a sausage, mate, just cram it in
— hella (@goddamnhella) July 2, 2016
Shorten not knowing how to eat a sausage is solid evidence politicians being swapped out for #lizzardpeople #ausvotes
— David (@politicotab) July 2, 2016
Shorten mainlining a sausage in bread from the side could be his downfall. #ausvotes
— Nathan (@NathanMJ_22) July 2, 2016
This Shorten sausage eating situation is probably the lowest moment we have ever seen in politics.
— Apoplectic Pedro (@pistollle) July 2, 2016
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Labor leader later turned away from cameras to “grapple with the snag”, which it construed as evidence of his regretting the decision to tackle the sandwich at all.
Because it is not only Shorten who must suffer from this inevitable misjudgment. One “culinary gaffe”, as the Daily Telegraph titled the genre, only serves to resurrect the others: it hailed Shorten’s “own Ed Miliband bacon sandwich moment”.
The former British Labour party leader’s own documented struggle to consume wheat and animal protein products simultaneously has its own Wikipedia page, which describes it as “the source of sustained commentary in 2014 and 2015”.
At least Bill knows where the bar is set.
I cant believe Shorten fulfilled every Miliband stereotype right down to eating food like an idiot
— SrebrenicaTruthSteve (@JokeLvr) July 2, 2016
