A Grim Tory Ad About London Crime Used New York Footage

It was a typical political attack ad. “London: a city steeped in history,” a narrator says, as grim string music plays. “But tonight its ancient streets bear witness to a different tale. A tale not of kings and queens, but of crime and desperation.”

Accompanying the ad’s bleak, American-accented narration were dour black-and-white images, including a shadowy figure walking through an alley, a young girl looking sadly out a window and frightened commuters running through a train station.

But there was a problem. Those terrified people dashing to safety? They weren’t in London. They were in Penn Station in New York. In 2017.

The ad was pulled and the Conservative Party in Britain replaced it with a new version without the mistaken clip.

The ad, originally posted Monday on social media, was designed to convince Londoners to vote for Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for mayor, over the incumbent, Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party.