An allegation surfaces in, of all newspapers, the Daily Mail that the prime minister David Cameron once put his todger in a dead pig’s mouth some 30 years ago in some kind of university initiation ceremony. Where’s the story there, then? If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ve all done something similar, usually several times before breakfast, haven’t we? Well, no, not really, unless we were members of posh drinking clubs and had access to a wide range of illegal substances, another allegation from Britain’s most poisonous newspaper.
There was me thinking that the Bullingdon Club types were harmless young chaps whose idea of a good night was to trash a restaurant, humiliate the staff and write out a cheque to pay for the damage. What do I know?
Before we get too sniffy about all this, it might be worth thinking about incidents in all our pasts that we might think do not look quite so clever now. For example, I remember attending a “Gentleman’s Smoking Evening” where two female “performers” performed with men I knew well, men who later went on to have families and very responsible jobs. I did not join in, I hasten to add, but if I had gone on to a career in the media spotlight you can bet your bottom dollar that my attendance would have been shared with a grateful nation, no doubt embellished with stories that were made up which I would then have to deny, making it appear the stories were actually true! Remember the old adage that you should never believe anything until it’s been officially denied!
And how many times have we listened to “hilarious” stories from rugby players about leaving colleagues naked by the roadside, many miles from the tour hotel, or stupendously drunk in a nightclub, chatting up every female in sight or, as one of my friends who when in holiday in Thailand managed to do, “get off with”, as we say in Bristol, a lady who, er, wasn’t actually a lady. I suspect the allegations about the PM must make them cringe and hope to God their own indiscretions don’t somehow come back to haunt them, too.
The big surprise to me is that the alleged pork porker isn’t Jeremy Corbyn, who despite his privileged educational background, doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who would expose his genitals to a dead pig. Anyway, he’s a vegetarian, so perhaps a bowl of lentils might be more appropriate.
As a dripping wet soggy liberal who reads the dripping wet soggy liberal Guardian, I did feel a little smug and superior this morning as I stood in the paper shop queue this morning when almost everyone else around me had picked up a copy of Lord Rothermere’s organ. Given the lead story that’s least two too many organs for my liking.
