I’ve been to Number 10.
It actually isn’t THAT glamorous behind that famous door.
If anything, it feels a little like a hotel lobby that needs some love.
However, what DOES happen behind that door before heading out into that most famous of media centres on Downing Street is last minute checks.
These WILL include the weather.
Now, I totally get that if he had used an umbrella, that would have looked weak.
Bad “optics” as they say.
So don’t.
Either do it inside or wait.
The media WILL wait when you’re the PM, especially given the gravitas of what was coming and believe me, they will have been tipped off.
Maybe that was the issue….there was a leak.
The irony of that will not have been lost on the PM as he stood there, bravely/stubbornly announcing the election as the headline writers gleefully dipped their quills in poison and the cameras snapped away merrily.
I had some advice from a seasoned reporter when I first started in my PR career:
“Think in pictures” he said.
It is THAT picture, that scene, those puddles and the soaking suit as Rishi turned away that will linger long in the memory, not the clever “I’m not fair-weather politician” remark the next morning after he’d dried off and headed up to my neck of the woods in Derbyshire.