Save the Children’s new ad campaign about child poverty in Britain has a heartbreaking storyline:

“Alex pretends he is a brave prince. It’s a game his mum and dad have invented because they want to shield him from the reality of living in severe poverty — a reality shared by 1.6 million children in the UK. So instead of worrying about living in a freezing house with no heating, the brave prince imagines he has taken a journey to the Land of the Polar Bears. Instead of feeling sad because he doesn’t have a bed, the brave prince creates an indoor tent where he sleeps on his many adventures.”

Awkwardly the charity have just confirmed to Guido that young Alex literally was pretending to be a brave prince – he and his mother are actors. Not that Save the Children have acknowledged it in the ad or on their official YouTube page as you might expect from the charity. They would never get away with using child actors in a guilt-trip ad campaign in Africa, so how can they do it here?