Ed Miliband’s ‘Bacon Sandwich’ Moment

Labour leader Ed Miliband awkwardly ate a bacon sandwich at New Covent Garden Market on 21st May, 2014. Mid-bite, eyes squinting, lips oddly parted, and fingers clumsily gripping the sandwich - it was an instantly meme-able moment. The British press pounced. The photo became a viral sensation, with endless edits, spoofs, and headlines suggesting Miliband wasn’t “human enough” to relate to the average voter. It was a perfect storm of bad optics, class-coded food politics, and the relentless image-focused nature of modern campaigning. The idea that someone couldn’t even eat a sandwich “properly” became, bizarrely, a shorthand for unrelatability. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly unpick why this accidental photocall continued to resonate a year later, becoming a ‘defining image’ of the 2015 general election; recall how David Cameron swerved a similar encounter with a hot dog; and discover how the Google results for this iconic moment have been somewhat interfered with… Further Reading: • ’Is this the moment Ed realised that the man who sold him this bacon sandwich is voting Tory? Labour leader's nationwide tour gets off to a difficult start’ (Mail Online, 2014): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2634977/Is-moment-Ed-realised-man-sold-bacon-sandwich-voting-Tory-Labour-leaders-nationwide-tour-gets-difficult-start.html • ‘The Defining Image of the British Election’ (The Atlantic, 2015): https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/ed-miliband-bacon-british-election/392867/ • ’Ed Miliband: 'The bacon sandwich didn't lose me the election'’ (LBC, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38SKEBPohU Love the show? Support us! Join 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content. Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices