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Isabel Oakeshott runs squealing from David Cameron #piggate claims Isabel Oakeshott runs squealing from David Cameron #piggate claims
(35 minutes later)
The hinges are coming off pig-gate. The hinges are coming off piggate.
Isabel Oakeshott, former political editor at the Sunday Times and author of Call Me Dave, the unauthorised biography of David Cameron that set social media ablaze with its tales of prime ministerial porcine passion, has further distanced herself from one of her book’s most oinked-about passages. Isabel Oakeshott, former political editor at the Sunday Times and co-author of Call Me Dave, the unauthorised biography of David Cameron that set social media ablaze with its tales of prime ministerial porcine passion, has further distanced herself from one of her book’s most oinked-about passages.
Appearing at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Oakeshott conceded that the nauseating claim that Hameron – as the disgusted Twitter commentariat labelled him – popped his private parts in a dead pig’s head could well be a porkie.Appearing at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Oakeshott conceded that the nauseating claim that Hameron – as the disgusted Twitter commentariat labelled him – popped his private parts in a dead pig’s head could well be a porkie.
Furthermore, Oakeshott admitted it is far easier to slip questionable anecdotes into books than it is into newspapers – before insisting her exposé should still be regarded as a “seriously well-researched book”.Furthermore, Oakeshott admitted it is far easier to slip questionable anecdotes into books than it is into newspapers – before insisting her exposé should still be regarded as a “seriously well-researched book”.
According to the Times she said it is a false premise that “things that are written in books need to have the same standard – if you like to use that word – as things that are written in newspapers”. According to the Times, she said it is a false premise that “things that are written in books need to have the same standard – if you like to use that word – as things that are written in newspapers”.
“You might just as well say: ‘Well, you couldn’t have put that in Barbie Princess magazine’,” she argued. “Would I have got that story into The Sunday Times? Well, I reckon it probably could have been a diary story, expressed much more euphemistically.” Related: Call Me Dave by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott review – a pig in a poke
The beastly episode during Cameron’s University of Oxford years was relayed to Oakeshott by an MP, who she accepted “could have been slightly deranged”. “You might just as well say: ‘Well, you couldn’t have put that in Barbie Princess magazine’,” she argued. “Would I have got that story into the Sunday Times? Well, I reckon it probably could have been a diary story, expressed much more euphemistically.”
The beastly episode during Cameron’s University of Oxford years was relayed to Oakeshott by an MP, who, she accepted, “could have been slightly deranged”.
“The thing to point out about that story is that there is no need for burden of proof on a colourful anecdote where we’re quite upfront about our own reservations about whether to take it seriously.”“The thing to point out about that story is that there is no need for burden of proof on a colourful anecdote where we’re quite upfront about our own reservations about whether to take it seriously.”
Ashcroft might have been as happy as a ... well, you know ... when the Daily Mail splashed on revelations of Cameron’s hedonistic student antics at the notorious dining club, the Piers Gaveston society, in the 1980s.
With more backtracking like this, Oakeshott might have just saved Cameron’s bacon.With more backtracking like this, Oakeshott might have just saved Cameron’s bacon.