Politics has become a race to the bottom of the "offense" leaderboard. The recent erupting volcano of moral indignation over Kemi Badenoch using Bloody Sunday footage in a campaign video isn’t about respect for the dead. It isn't about historical sensitivity. It is a calculated, low-effort attempt to use a national tragedy as a tactical gag order. When MP Colum Eastwood labels the use of these clips "disgusting," he isn't defending the victims; he is defending the monopoly on who gets to speak about British history.
Let’s stop pretending that certain historical events are encased in amber, untouchable by anyone who doesn't hold the "correct" party membership card. History belongs to the public. If you want to run for the highest office in the land, you have to engage with the darkest moments of the state you intend to lead. Shielding these moments behind a veil of "sanctity" is how we breed historical illiteracy. For an alternative look, read: this related article.
The Myth of the "Sacred" Archive
The prevailing argument from the critics is that using footage of a massacre for political branding is inherently exploitative. This is a comforting lie. Every documentary, every news retrospective, and every history book uses this footage to drive a narrative. The moment a camera captures an event, that event enters the arena of public discourse.
The outrage isn't about the footage itself. It’s about the person holding the remote. If a left-leaning politician used the same clips to highlight state overreach, the same critics would call it "powerful" or "necessary truth-telling." When a Conservative uses it to frame a narrative of national identity or reform, it becomes "desecration." This double standard is a cancer on political debate. Similar reporting regarding this has been published by NBC News.
We have reached a point where the "correct" way to acknowledge history is to perform a scripted act of mourning while avoiding any actual analysis of the power structures involved. Badenoch’s team didn’t invent these images. They tapped into a collective memory that is already being used as a weapon by every side of the Irish border debate. To suggest one side has a moral copyright on the visuals of 1972 is intellectually dishonest.
The Logic of Professional Victimhood
Modern political communication relies on a feedback loop of simulated trauma. An MP sees a video, claims to be "sickened," and the media cycle spends 48 hours debating the feeling of the MP rather than the content of the campaign. This is a diversionary tactic. It allows politicians to avoid talking about policy by instead talking about etiquette.
I have spent years watching campaigns dissolve into these "etiquette wars." It is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for a stagnant opposition. If you can't beat a candidate on their economic platform or their vision for the civil service, you find a five-second clip in a montage and scream "disrespect."
It works because the public is conditioned to prioritize empathy over efficacy. But empathy doesn't fix a broken healthcare system or a housing crisis. We are trading functional governance for a series of performative apologies. Badenoch is being attacked because she refuses to play the "apology game," a game designed to make right-wing candidates look perpetually contrite for things they didn’t personally do.
The Utility of Discomfort
A political leader’s job is not to make you feel warm and fuzzy about the past. Their job is to confront the reality of the state. Bloody Sunday is a reality of the British state. Ignoring it in a campaign about the future of Britain would be a greater sin than including it.
The discomfort the public feels when seeing paratroopers on a campaign reel is actually a vital democratic function. It forces a collision between the aspirational rhetoric of "Global Britain" and the messy, blood-soaked reality of historical governance. We should want our leaders to look at the worst failures of the institutions they want to run.
By demanding the removal of such footage, critics are essentially advocating for a "sanitized" version of political history—a Greatest Hits version of Britain where we only talk about the 1966 World Cup and the Blitz spirit. That is a fantasy. It is the political equivalent of a corporate brochure.
The Sovereignty of Narrative
Let's dismantle the "People Also Ask" obsession with "Who gave her permission?" In a free society, you don’t need permission to reference the public record. The families of the victims of Bloody Sunday have every right to their personal grief, and their pain is immense and valid. But they do not own the political implications of the event.
When an event changes the course of a nation’s laws, its military policy, and its constitution, it becomes a pillar of the national story. You cannot gatekeep a pillar. If we allow the precedent that "sensitive" history can only be referenced by those with a specific emotional stake, we lose the ability to have a national conversation.
Imagine a scenario where we applied this logic across the board. Could we not mention the Iraq War because it upsets veterans? Could we not show footage of the miners' strikes because it's "disgusting" to the communities involved? Total silence is the only logical end to the "offense" doctrine. And silence is the best friend of a failing establishment.
Why the "Outrage" is a Strategic Failure
For the critics, this manufactured scandal is a tactical error. By focusing on a few seconds of B-roll, they have handed Kemi Badenoch a perfect foil. She gets to play the "anti-woke" warrior fighting against a stifling consensus, while her opponents look like they are crying over a video edit.
If the goal was to stop her momentum, the strategy should have been to ignore the aesthetics and attack the substance. Instead, they’ve made the story about her "bravery" in the face of "cancel culture." It’s a script written by her own PR team, delivered for free by her enemies.
The real question we should be asking isn't "Why did she use the footage?" but "Why are we so afraid of political candidates engaging with the reality of our past?"
Stop looking for reasons to be offended and start looking for reasons to be informed. The footage isn't the problem. The fact that you think certain parts of history are "off-limits" is the problem. If a candidate wants to show us the blood on the floor of the house they want to move into, let them. At least then we know they aren't colorblind.
Burn the rulebook on "appropriate" campaigning. If it happened, it's fair game. If it hurts, it's probably important.
