Election Watch

It looks and feels spontaneous, but is it? A video of Ed Miliband having an apparently impromptu chat with Feroz Khan, an American social media influencer, on the streets of New York Khan is an American social media influencer who has made a name for himself conducting seemingly impromptu interviews with people he stops in the street with a simple question: “What do you do for a living?” The Miliband clips has already had more than 1million views. But is it real? In fact it has been carefully staged There are several clues. The video shows Khan stopping Miliband in the street as he makes his way between engagements. “Excuse me, you have an amazing outfit,” he tells him. “What do you do for a living?” Rather than walk on Miliband, surprisingly, stops and turns to face the camera. His aides, meanwhile, keep on marching on without even looking back to check who he is talking to. They don’t wait for him, disappearing out of shot Even for a politician, Miliband appears to have rather well-rehearsed answers for Khan’s questions. “Hang on you’re that Feroz guy aren’t you,” he says. “You interviewed JLo once. What are you doing here?” Khan replies with a compliment: “I spread positivity on social media and I happened to come across you well dressed. What do you do for a living?” In a surreal exchange Miliband says he is the foreign secretary of Great Britain. “Please forgive me, I don’t know what that is,” Khan replies “I’m like the Marco Rubio of Great Britain,” Miliband says. What follows is an extraordinarily soft interview on any level. Khan, who sees his job as “spreading positivity”, says: “Nice to meet you. What makes your work so special?” The final clue is in the post itself. Khan posted it on his Instagram in direct “collaboration” with the Foreign Office and Britain’s UN mission, meaning it went up on their Instagram accounts at exactly the same time thetimes.com/article/fd04b25…