A homeowner was left in stitches when a Conservative council candidate asked him if his mum and dad were home.
Footage of the politician’s cringeworthy blunder was picked up by a doorbell camera.
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Sam Gascoyne is a Tory council candidate for the Pitsea North-West ward in Basildon, Essex. But when Steven Wood opened his front door to the politician, he received a rather unorthodox greeting: “Your house?”
Steven, a 24-year-old assembly operator, concedes that he has been mistaken for someone underage before.
He puts this down to the fact he’s 5ft 3in and has a bit of a babyface.
But the ugly truth clearly dawns on the Conservative candidate far too late, creating a toe-curlingly awkward moment.
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There are four seconds of footage between Wood opening the door and Gascoyne framing his first patronising question that make for especially painful viewing.
Steven moved in with his partner, Bethany, 21, only six months ago and was redecorating on Saturday when the local politician came knocking.
You can almost see the cogs whirring inside the council hopeful's head as he tries to make sense of the situation. He does make some sounds to try and defuse the situation, but they are impossible to transcribe, or describe other than comparing them to a combination of a stutter and a death wail.
Sam says that although he wishes the footage was fake, it's not the first time he's made this sort of mistake, previously confusing a child with a homeowner.
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The Tory candidate said: "This kind of thing has happened before – I thought I was talking to the homeowner only to discover they weren't old enough to vote.”
In the video, Gascoyne, sporting a blue rosette and carrying wads of leaflets, proceeds to double down and ask Wood whether his mum or dad were in.
He also started to gesticulate to the homeowner, as if he was explaining something to a slow child, or perhaps an especially intelligent dog.
Steven said: "I'm 24 and five foot three so I look about 11. I was midway through wallpapering. I answered the door, I wasn't expecting anyone, I couldn't open it full way because the bedside table was in the way. He said, 'Is your mum and dad in?'.
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"I thought it was funny, I said to my mum before I moved in that I could see it happen because I'm still getting ID'd for cans of Monster.
"Bethany was out so she missed it. I thought I wonder if it's on the ring doorbell and it was.
"She thought it was hilarious. She absolutely loved it. She looks older than me. My whole family thought it was hilarious, my mum had been to a funeral so it made her day."
Steven's brother has since tweeted the video, which has gone viral, with more than 50,000 interactions and viewers branding it 'comedy gold'.
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Sam hopes that viewers of the viral clip will be able to see the funny side of things “I really hope this doesn't put him off voting for me! If I don't get elected at least I have an opportunity to be a Stephen Merchant impersonator."
Alex Fleming-Brown