3 min read28 November
The government is paying French influencers to persuade people to visit the UK, PoliticsHome has learned.
The Cabinet Office has paid at least four influencers to create YouTube and Instagram posts promoting dining, music and sightseeing in Britain. The government hopes it will help boost French visitor numbers, which are yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
In one 23-minute video, chef Eloy Spinnler, who has 280,000 subscribers on YouTube, collaborated with the Cabinet Office to showcase London’s restaurant scene.
He went behind the scenes at Michelin-starred chef Adam Handling’s London restaurant, Frog, where he described an “exceptional” look at British gastronomy and zero-waste cooking. While preparing four dishes, they discussed shared values between British and French food cultures, homegrown vegetables, and environmentally conscious meats.
Meanwhile, Monelle Godaert — whose @not_so_superflu Instagram account has one million followers — was paid to promote her visit to the South East of England.
She told followers: “We had a truly wonderful time and can’t wait to go back. At least 80 per cent of what we ate was locally sourced: from the garden, neighbouring farms, and the sea just below.
“I was so impressed by how they reinvent traditional British cuisine with such creativity and attention to local producers. Just one example of the British approach to food, which is both creative and sustainable.”
Two former Miss France winners turned influencers, Amandine Petit and Clémence Botino, were given a trip to Scotland as part of the GREAT campaign — the UK’s marketing push in 140 countries abroad.
Official figures, obtained by PoliticsHome, show that the Labour government has spent around £372,000 on influencer marketing since being elected. The same Freedom of Information response showed that £358,000 was paid by the previous Conservative government in the period between March 2022 and the end of its time in office.
Much of the Labour government’s work with influencers is handled by the New Media Unit. Known internally as NMU, it is responsible for modernising government communications. The unit put the UK government on social media platform TikTok, and PoliticsHome revealed in April that it had also set up a government account on Reddit.
PoliticsHome also revealed in July that No 10 was to host the first-ever Downing Street reception with online influencers, as part of its push to reach voters on platforms beyond traditional media.
Kanishka Narayan, the minister for Artificial Intelligence, last month told PoliticsHome that the government must do “a lot more to win the battle of content online”.
A government spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “We’ve long known that we’ve got to show up where people are.
“That means working more closely with creators and influencers to tell our story alongside traditional media. Innovation is a good thing, and we are committed to modernising outdated practices across government.
“Government is here to serve everyone, and we want to make sure that’s reflected in who we’re talking to.”
Ofcom’s 2024 News Consumption report found that 71 per cent of adults get their news online compared with 70 per cent who rely on television. Meanwhile, more than half (52 per cent) use social media specifically as a news source, it found.
Tory shadow minister Mike Wood accused the Labour government of “hiking spending on social media influencers and spin whilst taxes go through the roof”.
In response, a government source said the Conservatives were hypocritical given the money they spent on influencers while in office. “It’s no surprise that governments want to communicate directly with the public wherever they get their news. That isn’t controversial, it’s common sense,” they said.
In February 2024, the then Conservative home secretary James Cleverly expanded a mass Home Office advertising campaign by paying TikTok influencers to discourage attempted small boat crossings from Asia and the Middle East.
Dining and Cooking