Boris Johnson was photoshopped out of a photo tweeted by top Tory Grant Shapps posing with a failed UK rocket.
The Business Secretary tweeted the image on Sunday, showing him laughing during a visit to the Virgin Orbit spacecraft in Cornwall earlier this year.
But the image appears to show him enjoying a solitary visit to Spaceport in Cornwall.
In fact, he was accompanying Boris Johnson on the trip - and the former Prime Minister was originally front and centre in the photograph.
The tweet was deleted from Mr Shapps account this morning, but not before eagle-eyed readers had spotted the digital manipulation.
An identical photo was posted on the Number 10 Flickr account, dated June 9 2021.
It shows the then-Conservative leader, brow furrowed and arm raised, wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words: "Prime Minister."
Mr Johnson and Mr Shapps are stood side by side in Cornwall during a visit to LauncherOne.
A spokesperson for Grant Shapps said: "Grant wasn’t aware anyone had edited the picture. He removed it as soon as it was pointed out.
"Obviously he wouldn’t endorse anyone rewriting history by removing the former PM from a picture. He was proud to serve in Boris' Government"
Part of Mr Johnson's elbow is still visible in the photoshopped version.
Rishi Sunak's official spokesman denied airbrushing the former Prime Minister constituted "stalinist revisionism."
Speaking in the House of Commons today, Grant Shapps told MPs: “I would never knowingly remove the former Prime Minister, who I served enthusiastically, from anything that I put out, if I knew it was going out that way.”
Labour MP Andrew Gwynne said Mr Shapps should spend "less time on Photoshop and more time on the day job".
In 2012, while Shapps was serving as Conservative Party chairman, Shapps was accused of previously using pseudonyms to hold another job outside of Parliament after his election as an MP in 2005.
One fake name that he continuously denied using was Michael Green.
But in 2015 he was exposed as having continued to work as a "multimillion-dollar web marketer" of a get-rich-quick scheme for at least a year after becoming an MP under the Michael Green pseudonym and finally confirmed the identity after dismissing the claims for years.
A launch attempt on Tuesday morning ended in failure after suffering an "anomaly" during the flight.
After taking off from Cornwall, the Virgin Orbit plane flew to 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean where it jettisoned the rocket containing nine small satellites towards space.
Organisers of the Start Me Up mission said the rocket - with a variety of civil and defence applications - failed to orbit.
After the launch failed, Mr Shapps told Sky News: "Space is difficult. Everyone's used to seeing rockets which explode from Japan, what have you.
"The great thing about this technology is that no-one was harmed. The pilots came back in the aircraft.
"It didn't work. I've no doubt that they'll pick themselves up, dust themselves off and they'll go again once they find out what exactly went wrong with it."
Mr Shapps did not know the time schedule for another possible attempt.
"It was a big moment nonetheless yesterday," he added.
