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Enjoy #piggate, but don’t forget Lord Sewel

Pig's headMany politicians from US president and London mayors downwards have survived run-of-the-mill kiss and tell marital indiscretion. But necrophiliac bestiality on the part of a prime minister truly takes us into uncharted territory.

At the very least, yesterday’s revelations concerning David Cameron’s youthful Oxford high jinks are going to dog him – if that’s the right turn of phrase here – for the rest of his term in office. Henceforth no visit to a campus or constituency association fundraising shindig will remain unmarked by a gaggle of demonstrators hilariously clad in pig masks and doing their best to imitate porcine grunting.

Back in the 1980s, Thatcher cabinet minister Cecil Parkinson visited the London School of Economics, after it emerged that he had fathered an illegitimate child with learning disabilities by his secretary, and had shunned the daughter since birth.

The student left responded by bombarding the stage with inflated condoms. We even altered the then-popular chant of ‘Maggie Maggie Maggie, out out out’ to ‘Cecil Cecil Cecil, in out in out in out’. OK, I guess you had to be there.

In short, Labour supporters can this morning be forgiven a moment of schadenfreude over #piggate, if only because it inevitably brings out the smutty fourth former residual in many of us.

It’s entirely understandable to have a good giggle at Cameron’s expense, and even congratulate Lord Ashcroft for the gratuitous timing of the attack, as a temporary divertissement from the pressure faced by Labour’s new leadership.

If it were down to me, I would even engage in some borderline ribaldry at this week’s PMQs, although I suspect that this is not in keeping with the tone of Corbyn’s politics.

But let’s not gloat for any extended period. It isn’t that long since the exploits of Lord Sewel were adding significantly to the gaiety of the nation. There are no doubt numerous Labour politicians whose foibles and peccadillos could feature in the tabloid spotlight without warning.

As the coverage of Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott’s entirely consensual and public relationship in the 1970s illustrates, the media are perpetually ready to cut up rough whenever the can get sex and politics into same story.

Meanwhile, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is now underway and if proof emerges of some of the rumours that are doing the rounds on social media emerges, there is no particular reason to hope that Labour will emerge unscathed.

Don’t forget either that former Labour MP Lord Janner of Braunstone is set to stand trial on 22 counts of sexual offences from the 1960s to the 1980s, mostly involving minors.

His family strenuously denies any wrongdoing. But whatever the verdict, the testimony is likely to be lurid, and the proceedings prolonged.

Make the best of Cameron’s discomfiture, then, but prepare for the boot to be on Dacre’s left foot more often than on his right foot.

Image Copyright: arhendrix / 123RF Stock Photo

8 Comments

  1. John P Reid says:

    Now a strong Shdow cabinet is starting to define policies(even if I don’t agree with them on a trident renewal,being pro the EU) are starting to take in the Toeies, I feel this story is being used to deflect, away from the Tory cuts,

  2. John P Reid says:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/21/david-cameron-piggate-sideshow-dead-pig
    3.or so articles in the guardian deflecting what the Tories are really doing

  3. Chris says:

    Janner was declared too unwell to stand trial by an impartial figure, but then there was a media feeding frenzy and the mob got him put on trial anyway.

    1. historyintime says:

      I’m on the ‘mob’s’ side. Given the appalling nature of the allegations, any balance of doubt needs to be put in favour of his capacity to stand trial. If he really is incompetent it will rapidly become apparent.

      1. Robert says:

        Six weeks before he was so ill, he was holding meetings to discuss his businesses, and then he was told they were going to charge him he became to ill.
        Seems the shock made his dementia worse.

        1. J.P. Craig-Weston says:

          Apparently there’s still hope; lets not ever forget that Ernest Saunders, (remember him, one of the very few bankers who have actually been jailed for insider dealing,) has a cure, certainly he made a quite remarkable recovery shortly after being released.

  4. J.P. Craig-Weston says:

    I was living in Oxford during the period when Cameron and co were undergraduates; even despite the generally the lax, tolerant and sometimes overindulgent attitude of the Oxford Colleges towards their rich and well connected students Cameron and co, acquired an unenviable reputation for vileness and misogyny that was then unprecedented.

    1. Robert says:

      This has all the hall marks of revenge and not forgetting Boris would have been involved maybe Osborne because they all went to the same places and were well known friends .

      Was Ashcroft present or was it all hearsay , I think if he can prove this now he will tell us, and if it’s lies of course a court case will be forthcoming.

      You can say it’s not worth replying as Cameron is saying, sadly after a while people will smell a rat, which rat is the issue Ashcroft or Cameron.

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