‘Trainspotting’ author praises viral parody mocking Rishi Sunak

5 October, 2023

Irvine Welsh Rishi Sunak

Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh has praised a viral parody of the film targeted at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – check it out below.

The parody video titled “Trainstopping”, created by JOE.co.uk, reimagines the “Choose Life” scene from Danny Boyle’s 1996 film with Sunak as Ewan McGregor’s character Mark Renton.

The reworked version of the speech reads: “Choose life. Choose net zero. Choose clean air. Choose my career. Choose a big flip-flopping lie. Choose ignoring climate experts in favour of a Daily Mail hack. Choose seven bin gaslighting. Choose saying you understand the struggles of ordinary people while keeping a straight face.”

As the clip shows characters representing former Conservative leaders David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, the voiceover continues: “Choose your friends. Well, not working class friends. Choose this deceitful hunt.”

The clip concludes by referencing Sunak’s decision to scrap the HS2 high-speed rail line from Birmingham to Manchester, adding: “Choose life. But why would I do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose short-term populism. And the rail links? There’ll be no rail links. Who needs railways when you’ve got a private jet?”

Since it was released yesterday (October 4), the original clip has amassed over 2.8million views on X (fka Twitter).

Welsh, who wrote the original 1993 novel, also shared the clip on the platform, writing: “Trainspotting parodies usually bore the shit out of me, but I quite like this one.”

The parody video was released amid the 2023 Conservative Party conference in Manchester, which concluded on Wednesday (October 4).

Recently, Home Secretary Suella Braverman was trolled by comedian Joe Lycett following her comments about asylum seekers pretending to be gay in order to “game the system”.

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