The Conservatives were accused of treating the cabinet reshuffle “like transfer deadline day”, after the party announced ministerial changes with emojis and phrases including “he’s back” and “here we go”.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, the Conservative Party’s official account marked appointments with a siren emoji and phrases such as “congratulations” and “huge move”.
“EXCLUSIVE: we have a new Party Chairman,” read one post.
Another post announcing the appointment of former prime minister Lord Cameron as Foreign Secretary included a fire emoji and read: “He’s back.”
Channelling Italian sports journalist Fabrizio Romano, the appointment of Victoria Atkins as Health Secretary read “Vicky Atkins to Health, here we go” with a siren emoji.
Romano has gained more than 19 million followers on X thanks to his transfer exclusives, which he often signs off with the phrase “Here we go”.
One post said: “AGREEMENT REACHED: Laura Trott takes up a position in the Treasury as Chief Secretary” with a picture of the former pensions minister captioned: “Laura Trott chief sec will grow the economy.”
The approach was noticed by X users, with one posting: “Why are they tweeting like Fabrizio on deadline day?”
Another user posted: “This isn’t Transfer Deadline Day. You’ve got a country to run.”
Matt Navarra, a social media expert, told the PA news agency that using a football transfer deadline day-style in their content made the news “a little bit more fun” and could help the Tories “draw in a wider audience”.
“They’ve clearly tried to have a bit more fun and tried a little bit more engagement around something that for a large number of people may not be overly exciting or easy to engage with, which is a cabinet reshuffle,” he said.
“The use of a football transfer deadline day-style piece of content and using some of the lingo that people associate with transfer deadline day does make it a little bit more fun.
“It may draw in a wider audience and maybe an audience that wouldn’t typically spend any time looking at these sorts of posts with the cabinet reshuffle.”
He added: “At least it’s not back to the days of Boris Johnson and comic sans text and other more edgy styles of social posts.”
When Mr Johnson was Conservative leader in 2019, the party drew attention by using the comic sans font to share messages about Brexit.
They posted slogans such as “MPs must come together and get Brexit done” in the font, with bright colours, to grab the attention of Twitter users.
