Hugh Grant has pointed out a crucial difference between a famous scene in Love Actually and a spoof version of the scene re-enacted by Boris Johnson for a campaign video.
In a video posted to the Conservative Party YouTube channel, Johnson recreates a scene from the Richard Curtis film, in which a character played by Andrew Lincoln professes his love for Keira Knightley using white placards with messages written on them.
In Johnson’s video, messages that appear on his placards include: “With any luck, by next year we’ll have Brexit done (if Parliament doesn’t block it again).”
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Grant, who played the Prime Minister in the 2003 film, was asked to comment on the spoof, suggesting it may have been paid for by Russian money.
“I thought it was quite well done, [with] very high production values,” Grant said. “Clearly the Conservative Party have an awful lot of money. Maybe that’s where all the rubles went?”
He added, though, that he had spotted one placard from the original film that hadn’t been recreated by Johnson.
“The one where Andrew Lincoln held up a card saying, ‘Because of Christmas, you tell the truth’,” he said. “I just wonder if the spin doctors in the Tory party thought that was a card that wouldn’t look too great in Boris Johnson’s hands.”
Grant has been a vocal proponent for tactical voting in the general election, supporting both Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates that have realistic chances of winning their seats.
