Dr Ellen Watts
Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. She is interested in politics and popular culture, and uses sport to teach qualitative research methods.
UK Election 2024
Section 8: Personality politics and popular culture
87. Ed Davey: Towards a Liberal Populism? (Dr Tom Sharkey, Dr Sophie Quirk)
88. Why Nigel Farage’s anti-media election interference claims are so dangerous (Dr Lone Sorensen)
89. Nigel Farage and the political circus (Dr Neil Ewen)
90. Binface, Beany and Beyond: humorous candidates in the 2024 General Election (Prof Scott Wright)
91. What Corbyn support reveals about how Starmer’s Labour won big (Prof Cornel Sandvoss, Dr Benjamin Litherland, Dr Joseph Andrew Smith)
92. “Well that was dignified, wasn’t it?”: floor apportionment and interaction in the televised debates (Dr Sylvia Shaw)
93. TV debates: beyond winners and losers (Prof Stephen Coleman)
94. Is our television debate coverage finally starting to match up to multi-party politics? (Dr Louise Thompson)
95. Tetchiness meets disenchantment: capturing the contrasting political energies of the campaign (Prof Beth Johnson, Prof Katy Parry)
96. “We’re just normal men”: football and the performance of authentic leadership (Dr Ellen Watts)
97. ‘Make the friendship bracelets’: gendered imagery in candidates’ self-presentations on the campaign trail (Dr Caroline Leicht)
98. Weeping in Wetherspoons: generative Al and the right/left image battle on X (Simon Popple)
99. An entertaining election? Popular culture as politics (Prof John Street)
100. Changing key, but keeping time: the music of Election 2024 (Dr Adam Behr)
101. Truth or dare: the political veracity game (Prof John Corner)
Speculation continues over why Rishi Sunak called a July election, but the moment he did football-based photo opportunities became inevitable thanks to EURO 2024. Keir Starmer even gave his first campaign speech at the Gillingham FC ground. While Starmer has a track record of visiting football clubs across leagues and counties, Laura Kuenssberg commented that during the campaign he was mostly seen at “non-league football grounds” in his casual “centrist dad uniform”. She suggested this was an effort to move away from more obviously staged photo-ops, and present Starmer as “a man of the people”.
Both Sunak and Starmer faced challenges, however, in using the European Championship for this purpose. As James Stanyer argues, politics has become ‘intimised’: we’ve become used to knowing more about our politicians’ personal lives, and journalists asking them what they watch on TV. But politicians’ pop culture references can easily come off as inauthentic.
In addition to a clunky dribble around some cones at Chesham United, Sunak was mocked for asking people in Wales – which did not qualify for the tournament – whether they were “looking forward to all the football”. This felt reminiscent of David Cameron appearing to forget which team he supported during his own premiership, a slip which suggested his supposed lifelong interest in football had actually been retroactively manufactured.
Commentors suggest it would be unfair to accuse Sunak, who shared memories of watching Southampton as a child, of doing the same. But it was harder for Sunak to pass as a “genuine football fan” (as Simon Hattenstone argues Blair did) than Starmer, who says he has played “football pretty well every week since I was 10 years old” and plans to continue as Prime Minister. This fits Gunn Enli’s conception of authenticity as something audiences assess according to how consistently a persona is presented.
Starmer faces a different problem using this passion for political purposes. After visiting Bristol Rovers FC, he posted that “Football and patriotism go hand in hand”. But while happy to pose with a Bristol shirt printed with “Change 24”, Starmer was not to be spotted sporting the three lions of England while seeking to spearhead a Labour comeback in Scotland. As New Labour sought a patriotic re-brand, Blair was able to leverage ‘Cool Britannia’ and the chant for football to come home to England. In contrast, as we’ve seen the return of the Union Jack to Labour’s branding materials, Starmer has not capitalised on Gareth Southgate’s re-brand of the England men’s football team into progressive patriots.
Starmer did, however, pledge his allegiance to what Clavene and Long term ‘Southgatism’ in other ways. While Kuenssberg might be right that he wanted us to see him as a “man of the people” having a “kickabout with his mates”, he used references to football to pitch himself as a manager, not a player.
In the first televised leaders’ debate, Sunak and Starmer were asked to “advise” Southgate on whether the “best leadership approach” was to “play it safe, or take some risks and go for the win”. The question suggested it was preferable to be radical, and Sunak pledged he would take “bold action”. Starmer on the other hand emphasised that, like Southgate, he had spent several years “building a squad”.
One of Labour’s Party Election Broadcasts (PEBs) saw Starmer walking through the Lake District, the site of his childhood family holidays, with former England and Manchester United footballer Gary Neville. Neville also commentated on EURO 2024 for ITV, and yet, the broadcast does not mention football once. Why then, aside from his support for Labour and familiarity to audiences, choose Neville?
The answer may lie in his entrepreneurial endeavours. Neville is a property developer with multiple business ventures, and recently appeared as a guest judge on Dragons Den. His PEB with Starmer feels like one project manager interviewing another about his leadership competencies, and strategies to deliver. In his continued effort to distance his Labour from Corbyn’s, Starmer describes how he has set a “country-first” mission for his team, assessed their motivations, and set the expectation they will be “ready to deliver from the get go”.
Neville does not stand-in for “the British people”, but claims to know their priorities and “disappointment”. He seeks assurances from Starmer that he is capable of challenging negative perceptions of politicians, “comforting” people on tax, and changing preconceptions that Labour “can’t manage the economy”. Starmer shares his vision with Neville for a “decade of national renewal”, while setting a series of targets as “first steps” on this mission.
While photo opportunities and football chat were inevitable, Starmer was less interested in playing around to perform ordinariness. Instead, he harnessed the language of management to reinforce a campaign narrative that the ‘grown ups’ were coming home to govern.
