Rishi Sunak was pictured with teenagers in an image used to promote his smoking ban policy

Claims have been made on social media that a picture on Rishi Sunak’s X account had been edited to insert him into a group of teenagers to promote his proposed ban on smoking.

A graphic which has been viewed more than five million times on X, formerly Twitter, shows Mr Sunak smiling with three students and the slogan “a generation that grows up smoke free” written above their heads.

A further claim was made that the image was taken in the US of American teenagers, rather than students from the UK because one was wearing a sweatshirt from the University of Kentucky. The boy beside him wears a top with the logo of Purdue, an Indiana university, across his top.

One response on X said: “The fact Rishi’s team have googled UK (United Kingdom) teenagers and photoshopped him on… But what the image actually shows is UK (University of Kentucky) teenagers.”

Evaluation: False

The photo is unedited and was taken when the Prime Minister visited a college in Cornwall in February 2023.

The facts

The original photo was posted to the Conservative Party’s official Flickr page  on February 9.

The picture was taken during a visit by Mr Sunak and Conservative MP Cherilyn Mackrory to Truro and Penwith College, according to its picture caption.

Another picture from the visit shared on the official Conservative Flickr album from the visit shows two of the boys interacting with the Prime Minister and Mrs Mackrory.

The photo has been cropped and edited to include blue, red and white stripes, with one of the stripes seeming to separate Mr Sunak from the teenagers. The Tory Party 2023 conference slogan “Long-term decisions for a brighter future” has also been added.

The image was including on an X post about the Government’s plans to introduce a new law banning tobacco sales to anybody born on or after January 1 2009 in his conference speech. This will mean that any child turning 14 this year or younger will never legally be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco in England.

The move has the potential to phase out smoking in young people almost completely by as early as 2040.

Links

A claim the image was edited (archived)

Rishi Sunak tweet (archived)

A claim the students were from the University of Kentucky (archived)

Original photo on the Conservative Party’s official Flickr page (archived)

Another picture of the Prime Minister with some of the students on the Conservative Party’s official Flickr page (archived)

The college’s report on the PM’s visited dated February 9 (archived)

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