David Lammy tweeted a picture of the shotgun-toting antihero after Amber Rudd’s resignation – he’s only going where Barack Obama, for one, has gone before

Omar Little: the gay, shotgun-toting antihero – who stole from drug dealers on David Simon’s Baltimore crime series The Wire – may seem like an odd reference point for a politician. So when the MP David Lammy triumphantly tweeted: “Walking into parliament this morning,” alongside a picture of Omar after the resignation of Amber Rudd over the Windrush scandal, the response was split.

Those who had seen the programme and got the reference nodded in approval, while those who hadn’t questioned why an MP was comparing himself to a man wearing a bulletproof vest, armed with a shotgun. Omar, like most things in The Wire, doesn’t deal in black and white. He operates by his own code: he won’t harm anyone who isn’t in “the game” and only targets drug dealers and their crews. But he is incredibly violent and kills five people – with his signature shotgun – over the course of five seasons. It’s an approach that earned him the nickname the “hood Robin Hood”, and, reading between the lines, Lammy’s tweet suggests he sees himself as a disruptive figure who is holding the morally bankrupt to account.

David Lammy (@DavidLammy) Walking into Parliament this morning pic.twitter.com/P5pDVxPRXx

Lammy is far from the only politician to mention The Wire. Barack Obama said Omar was his favourite character in the show – although he was at pains to make clear “that’s not an endorsement”.

“He’s a standard dude with morals and a code,” Michael K Williams, who played Omar, said in 2012. “That was one of the things that Obama loved about him.”

Back in the days of the Tories’ “broken Britain” narrative, Chris Grayling took a different approach and compared parts of Blighty to Baltimore. “The Wire used to be just a work of fiction for British viewers,” he said in a speech in 2009, when the Conservatives were in opposition. “But under this government, in many parts of British cities, The Wire has become a part of real life in this country, too.” Grayling’s speech was dismissed by many as hyperbole to spice up his tough on crime stance, but The Wire and Omar still remain a potent, if potentially provocative, reference to use.