Shocking claims emerge of David Cameron’s university days in new book
Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography is written by Michael Ashcroft
Distinguished Oxford contemporary, now an MP, claims Prime Minister once took part in an outrageous initiation ceremony involving a dead pig
When Cameron arrived at Oxford, it was in the wake of the huge success of the TV series Brideshead Revisited.
Based on Evelyn Waugh’s novel, it featured the handsome and decadent Lord Sebastian Flyte, who wore a cricket pullover and over-indulged in alcohol.
Did Cameron take this Edwardian fop as his inspiration? James Delingpole, an Oxford friend, certainly recalls the future PM being fond of wearing a cricket sweater.
‘There was a division at Oxford between those of us who wanted to live the Brideshead lifestyle — to ape it — and the people wearing donkey jackets who were in support of the miners,’ he says.
‘The atmosphere among those of us who wanted to live the Brideshead life was really quite pleasant. There were cocktail parties in the Master’s [head of college] Garden . . . and we could all play at being Sebastian Flyte.’
But Cameron went a great deal further. He also got involved in the notorious Oxford dining society, the Piers Gaveston, named after the lover of Edward II, which specialises in bizarre rituals and sexual excess.
A distinguished Oxford contemporary claims Cameron once took part in an outrageous initiation ceremony at a Piers Gaveston event, involving a dead pig. His extraordinary suggestion is that the future PM inserted a private part of his anatomy into the animal’s mouth.
The source — himself an MP — first made the allegation out of the blue at a business dinner in June 2014. Lowering his voice, he claimed to have seen photographic evidence of this disgusting ritual.
My co-author Isabel Oakeshott and I initially assumed this was a joke. It was therefore a surprise when, some weeks later, the MP repeated the allegation.
Some months later, he repeated it a third time, providing a little more detail. The pig’s head, he claimed, had been resting on the lap of a Piers Gaveston society member while Cameron performed the act.
The MP also gave us the dimensions of the alleged photograph, and provided the name of the individual who he claims has it in his keeping.
The owner, however, has failed to respond to our approaches. Perhaps it is a case of mistaken identity. Yet it is an elaborate story for an otherwise credible figure to invent.
Furthermore, there are a number of accounts of pigs’ heads at debauched parties in Cameron’s day.
The late Count Gottfried von Bismarck, an Oxford contemporary of Cameron’s, reportedly threw dinner parties featuring the heads of pigs. (He later became notorious after Olivia Channon, daughter of a Tory minister, died of a heroin overdose in his Christ Church bedroom.)
Meanwhile, Cameron had joined yet another dubious society — the notorious Bullingdon Club — a riotous drinking club for a highly select band of the super-rich.
The bespoke uniform, of navy tailcoats, mustard-coloured waistcoats and sky-blue bow ties, could run to thousands of pounds, putting membership beyond the reach of ordinary students.
So how much significance should be attached to Cameron’s decision to join the Bullingdon Club?
One Tory colleague thinks that the answer is ‘considerable’. The MP concerned was once asked to join the club himself, but attended just one gathering before walking out in disgust.
‘What it basically involved was getting drunk and standing on restaurant tables, shouting about “f***ing plebs”,’ he says. ‘It was all about despising poor people.’
For his part, James Delingpole admits he ‘rather wanted’ to be in the Bullingdon, which had a recruitment ritual of trashing the room of any prospective member. He says: ‘Looking back — a) I didn’t have enough money, and b) I wouldn’t have actually enjoyed the sort of things they did, because I’m not very good at drinking heinous quantities and behaving really, really badly.
‘It’s about mindless destruction, and conspicuous excess and the rather ugly side of upper-class life. It’s loathsome.’
In Cameron’s defence, there’s no evidence that he damaged any property or hurt or offended others. Instead, his participation in club activities appears to have been relatively measured.
David Worth, an American postgraduate student who was in the club at the same time, recalls how his first outing involved taking a boat on the Thames to Cliveden House, the former stately home in Berkshire which was at the centre of the Profumo Scandal in the Sixties and is now a luxury hotel.
‘I remember David quoting Winston Churchill extensively by memory — Churchill was a bit of a lush, so they were quotes about drinking — and he was very funny, he said.
‘A few leaned over the side of the boat occasionally — if you’ve drunk two bottles of champagne in an hour, your stomach’s going to get queasy.’
London Mayor Boris Johnson says of the Bullingdon Club: ‘You wake up with that terrible hung-over sense of shame, accentuated by the feeling that you could have had much more fun if you’d just taken your girlfriend out to dinner. What was the bloody point?’
Cameron may well have come to the same conclusion. Despite his extra-curricular activities, he took his studies very seriously and was highly regarded by tutors.
Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography is written by Michael Ashcroft
Distinguished Oxford contemporary, now an MP, claims Prime Minister once took part in an outrageous initiation ceremony involving a dead pig
When Cameron arrived at Oxford, it was in the wake of the huge success of the TV series Brideshead Revisited.
Based on Evelyn Waugh’s novel, it featured the handsome and decadent Lord Sebastian Flyte, who wore a cricket pullover and over-indulged in alcohol.
Did Cameron take this Edwardian fop as his inspiration? James Delingpole, an Oxford friend, certainly recalls the future PM being fond of wearing a cricket sweater.
‘There was a division at Oxford between those of us who wanted to live the Brideshead lifestyle — to ape it — and the people wearing donkey jackets who were in support of the miners,’ he says.
‘The atmosphere among those of us who wanted to live the Brideshead life was really quite pleasant. There were cocktail parties in the Master’s [head of college] Garden . . . and we could all play at being Sebastian Flyte.’
But Cameron went a great deal further. He also got involved in the notorious Oxford dining society, the Piers Gaveston, named after the lover of Edward II, which specialises in bizarre rituals and sexual excess.
A distinguished Oxford contemporary claims Cameron once took part in an outrageous initiation ceremony at a Piers Gaveston event, involving a dead pig. His extraordinary suggestion is that the future PM inserted a private part of his anatomy into the animal’s mouth.
The source — himself an MP — first made the allegation out of the blue at a business dinner in June 2014. Lowering his voice, he claimed to have seen photographic evidence of this disgusting ritual.
My co-author Isabel Oakeshott and I initially assumed this was a joke. It was therefore a surprise when, some weeks later, the MP repeated the allegation.
Some months later, he repeated it a third time, providing a little more detail. The pig’s head, he claimed, had been resting on the lap of a Piers Gaveston society member while Cameron performed the act.
The MP also gave us the dimensions of the alleged photograph, and provided the name of the individual who he claims has it in his keeping.
The owner, however, has failed to respond to our approaches. Perhaps it is a case of mistaken identity. Yet it is an elaborate story for an otherwise credible figure to invent.
Furthermore, there are a number of accounts of pigs’ heads at debauched parties in Cameron’s day.
The late Count Gottfried von Bismarck, an Oxford contemporary of Cameron’s, reportedly threw dinner parties featuring the heads of pigs. (He later became notorious after Olivia Channon, daughter of a Tory minister, died of a heroin overdose in his Christ Church bedroom.)
Meanwhile, Cameron had joined yet another dubious society — the notorious Bullingdon Club — a riotous drinking club for a highly select band of the super-rich.
The bespoke uniform, of navy tailcoats, mustard-coloured waistcoats and sky-blue bow ties, could run to thousands of pounds, putting membership beyond the reach of ordinary students.
So how much significance should be attached to Cameron’s decision to join the Bullingdon Club?
One Tory colleague thinks that the answer is ‘considerable’. The MP concerned was once asked to join the club himself, but attended just one gathering before walking out in disgust.
‘What it basically involved was getting drunk and standing on restaurant tables, shouting about “f***ing plebs”,’ he says. ‘It was all about despising poor people.’
For his part, James Delingpole admits he ‘rather wanted’ to be in the Bullingdon, which had a recruitment ritual of trashing the room of any prospective member. He says: ‘Looking back — a) I didn’t have enough money, and b) I wouldn’t have actually enjoyed the sort of things they did, because I’m not very good at drinking heinous quantities and behaving really, really badly.
‘It’s about mindless destruction, and conspicuous excess and the rather ugly side of upper-class life. It’s loathsome.’
In Cameron’s defence, there’s no evidence that he damaged any property or hurt or offended others. Instead, his participation in club activities appears to have been relatively measured.
David Worth, an American postgraduate student who was in the club at the same time, recalls how his first outing involved taking a boat on the Thames to Cliveden House, the former stately home in Berkshire which was at the centre of the Profumo Scandal in the Sixties and is now a luxury hotel.
‘I remember David quoting Winston Churchill extensively by memory — Churchill was a bit of a lush, so they were quotes about drinking — and he was very funny, he said.
‘A few leaned over the side of the boat occasionally — if you’ve drunk two bottles of champagne in an hour, your stomach’s going to get queasy.’
London Mayor Boris Johnson says of the Bullingdon Club: ‘You wake up with that terrible hung-over sense of shame, accentuated by the feeling that you could have had much more fun if you’d just taken your girlfriend out to dinner. What was the bloody point?’
Cameron may well have come to the same conclusion. Despite his extra-curricular activities, he took his studies very seriously and was highly regarded by tutors.
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