Is Desmond Swayne TikToking the Mickey?

There are many concerns about TikTok, the Chinese-video sharing app beloved of the young people, from its short-attention-span slop damaging developing frontal lobes to an entire generation handing over its data, hook, line and sinker to the Communist Party.

In the US, President Trump is seeking to find a US buyer to take it out of Chinese hands. Here, politicians seek to make it less attractive to pre-teens by… adopting it themselves.

Earlier this month Keir Starmer joined the platform for his team to try and remedy his disastrous ratings by posting videos of him looking out of plane windows, saying good morning to security guards and questioning where his cat is.

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And now the latest to sign up is one of the more unlikely… Sir Desmond Swayne, a 69-year-old hang-’em-and-flog-’em hardline Tory Brexiteer who once wore blackface to attend a party as James Brown and defended it by saying he “went to some trouble to be as authentic as possible”.

Among his bizarre TikTok videos are a series of images of Swayne in Parliament put to the music of KC and The Sunshine Band’s That’s the Way (I Like It) (it explores “powerful memes reflecting strong stances on Brexit and Parliament”, apparently), and another showing him in a number of double-breasted suits to Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Springs. “When you wake up every morning you’ll have the urge to wear a double breasted suit… it’s VERY important that you do”, it solemnly intones to its viewers.

Another shows highlights of a Swayne speech in Parliament calling on Labour to “stop appeasing China”, the irony of the app he is using to promote it apparently being lost on him. That one was set to the music of InEssence by KA$TRO. It just needs Mark Francois to sign up and surely everyone under 30 will be deleting the app from their phone without delay!