This goes deeper than people realize.

I totally agree.

For me the use of cherry picked photos like that is a big red flag about the absence of Journalistic integrity of that publication and that shit (as well as a lot of other slimy Propaganda techniques) is all over the place, especially (but not only) in the Press in Anglo-Saxon countries.

I follow the Principle that people should be judged by their actions, and Principles apply to everybody indepently of their political color, so I abhor misportraying of a situation by people closer to me politically just as much as I abhor it when done by people far from me politically - if you put your principles aside for some political colors but not others, then they're not really principled and instead you just have principle-sounding slogans you use in politics.

And to address your first part, I do analyse any shocking pictures in the same way and with the same skepticism (the bigger the claim the bigger the proof required) - for many it's not hard to figure out alternative explanations which have a high probability. You can tell if it's a true skeptical analysis like I try to do or just denialism like many people do for political ends by 2 things:

• Do they do it always to "protect" one political side but never a different political one?
• Do they use low probability possibilities to dismiss high probability ones? For example, claiming that Musk was doing a "from my heart to you" movement rather than a "NAZI salute" when he did his salute, TWICE, in the Republican party conference - in terms of probability based on context, his past comments and even the details of the salute, the "NAZI salute" was a much higher probability explanation than any other explanations put forward by people who seemed more driven by liking him than anything else.

Fair enough.

Personally I think that his actions and words provide so much and so ample proof against the man that misportraying a picture of him adds nothing to the proof against him whilst introducing doubt on the character of the critics that would use forms of deceit such as that misportraying.

In other words, it's a net loss rather than a net gain.

Further, as a Principle I'm just against all forms of misportrayal of a person and situation, no matter what the political color of those involved - if I was only against it when it was done to attack people I dislike, then it wouldn't be a Principle, it would just be me doing some performative-Morality.

There are quite a lot of reasons for showing such displeasure, maybe a comment from somebody else at the same time or even just finding a bit of cartilage or bone in the bacon (I myself might very well do such a face if I was eating a bacon sandwich and there as cartilage or a bone in the bacon).

Also it's quite possible that bacon sandwich was simply a bad bacon sandwich.

It's also possible that Ed, being an upper middle class wanker like Blair, had never eaten a bacon sandwich before and didn't like it (which is weird, since even ultra posh upper class English wankers would have been exposed to fried bacon at some point in their lives, if only when eating a Full English Breakfast) or was secretly a vegetarian or vegan.

The very purposeful fake outrage against the Labour Party and Ed Milliband around that created by the British Tabloids during an election campaign has nothing to do with the reality of what was really going on and all to do with the style of British politics and the stupidity of a large fraction of the British electorate (as proven not that many years later by the Leave Referendum campaign and subsequent results).

The picture and the context around it says a lot more about Britons than it says about Ed Milliband.