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| Cameron caught making 'people in Yorkshire hate each other' jibe | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| David Cameron has been recorded apparently making a bizarre dig at people from Yorkshire, suggesting they hate each other as well as the rest of the country. | |
| The prime minister’s comment – which may or may not have been a joke – was picked up by a microphone as he appeared to be rehearsing his lines while backstage at a speech in Leeds on Friday. | |
| On the recording released by the BBC, he was discussing opportunities for devolution, when an unidentified male voice says: “The fact is there will be some devolution coming to Yorkshire. But what form that takes ...” | |
| Cameron quipped back: “We just thought people in Yorkshire hated everyone else, we didn’t realise they hated each other so much.” After which, laughter can be heard. | |
| Downing Street has not explained the comments, but he was defended by Andrew Percy, the Tory MP for Brigg and Goole, who said Cameron was not “slagging off” the region because it was true that local politicians are “fighting like cats in a sack over devolution”. | |
| Later David Cameron claimed the remark was “a total joke, but it’s been picked up and I expect I will be getting a bit of gyp for this.” | |
| He was later pictured alongside Yorkshire cricket club president and former umpire Dickie Bird and Geoffrey Boyoctt, the former England and Yorkshire opening batsman, watching England’s one-day international against Australia at headingley. | |
| Speaking on BBC Radio’s Test Match Special, he said: “I was picked up saying something this morning which wasn’t meant to be heard - there were five or six proposals for devolution in Yorkshire, and I said to an aide that I thought Yorkshiremen had it in for other people rather than each other, clearly as a joke. But I’ve been absolved by two of the greatest living Yorkshiremen - Geoffrey [Boycott] and Dickie Bird both agreed it was a joke.” | |
| It is not the first time Cameron has been caught making unguarded remarks. He had to apologise in September last year, after he was heard telling the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg that the Queen “purred down the line” when he informed her that Scotland had voted against independence. | |
| Related: David Cameron says Queen ‘purred down line’ after Scotland no vote |