To be perfectly fair, they all do this shit. Tom Watson was telling a story the other day where he was in charge of a Tony Blair whistle stop train tour where he'd have to get activists with lots of balloons to run along each platform as the train arrived as the loco that had been supplied was named “Mission Impossible.”
He swears not one picture was printed. Must have been amusing to watch. But these dark arts are standard practice and have been since he dawn of time.
Problem for the Tories is, they are particularly shit at them, so they are indeed a metaphor for their government but only because they are shit at them.