OPINION – Election merch shopping special! Labour bucket hat, Tory baseball cap or a babygro for your vote?

There’s little that brings me more joy than a quick study of political merch, so often a riveting insight into the Little Britain capabilities of party marketing teams. Tory superfans can snap up caricature Toby jugs (£28.95) of all previous leaders from Churchill to Johnson. Note, Liz Truss and Sunak have yet to find themselves immortalised in a kitsch ceramic. You could also sup tea from the world’s most boring mug, which is inscribed with the snore-slogan of “Clear plan, bold action, secure future”.

Angela Rayner (incidentally, the most stylish of the bunch) has kicked off things with a punchy perspex “Vote Labour” necklace; whilst the Labour Party shop is admirably leaning into the Daunt books crowd with jaunty “Totes not Tories” or indeed “Totes Labour” cloth bags (£14) and Gallagher-esque red bucket hats (£15). Party ambitions are perhaps more underscored with the babygro offer. Tory-tots can be inspired with the line “Future Prime Minister” across their onesies, while Labour-littles are limited to “Future Mayor”. Ouch.

Currently new-in on the Conservative Party online shop is an impressively on-trend baseball cap (£7.99), navy with a sweep of Tory wave-branding, which is giving more than a hint of Joe Biden. The US president trolled Donald Trump with his own cap post victory in 2020. His hat slogan read “We just did” in response to the orange one’s Maga cult.

Hillary Clinton has now whipped up a mug featuring her visage and the line “Turns out she was right about everything” in response to Trump’s newly acquired felon status. Careful that schadenfreude doesn’t come back to bite.