Cameron on Letterman

[Guest]

Just heard a clip from the David Letterman show. Cameron was unable to translate "Magna Carta" - he said "You're testing me", and Letterman said "It would be so good if you knew this". He was also unable to name the composer of Rule Britannia.

What do they teach them at Slough Grammar?

[mercia]

I forgive him not knowing Thomas Arne, but surely he did Latin at Eton ?

[Bryn]

Just heard a clip from the David Letterman show. Cameron was unable to translate "Magna Carta" - he said "You're testing me", and Letterman said "It would be so good if you knew this". He was also unable to name the composer of Rule Britannia.

What do they teach them at Slough Grammar?

A search for "Latin" at Slough Grammar School's site brought forth no hits. At South Slough's penguin academy, however, 2 pages of hits are found.

[teamsaint]

Pre -U is what they currently teach them.

but not table manners.
From what I have seen.

[Richard Tarleton]

A search for "Latin" at Slough Grammar School's site brought forth no hits. At South Slough's penguin academy, however, 2 pages of hits are found.

Profuse apologies to Slough Grammar, I didn't realise it actually existed, it's how Etonians sometimes amusingly refer to their alma mater (that's clearly another one DC will struggle with).

[Resurrection Man]

[SNIGGERMODE] Oh gosh, chaps. That Cameron didn't know what Magna Carta meant. [/SNIGGERMODE]

[SMUGMODE] And he didn't know who wrote Rule Brittania, either [/SMUGMODE]


When I heard this on the Today programme, I wondered just how long it would take.

[teamsaint]

When we are imposing freedom and democracy (!!) on the Middle East, in think it might be a good idea that those leading our country in these ventures understood something about the basis of our own freedoms, and the flaws our constitutional arrangements. Perhaps he does.
Even better if we had a leader with some experience of doing a proper job in the real world.He doesn't.

As to "how long it would take", it's what is known in the Field Game as an open goal.

[ahinton]

Just heard a clip from the David Letterman show. Cameron was unable to translate "Magna Carta" - he said "You're testing me", and Letterman said "It would be so good if you knew this". He was also unable to name the composer of Rule Britannia.

So much for The Two Daves.

Not knowing (or remembering) the English for Magna Carta is indeed pretty strange for someone of Mr Cameron's education. Not knowing (or remembering) the name of the composer of Rule, Britannia is sadly less unpredictable, as it's a piece of classical music, innit and most people don't listen to that nowadays except when waiting in a phone queue (gone, it would seem, are the days when at the première of Elgar 3 it was possible to see William Hague entering RFH a mere few paces behind Tony Benn); anyway, it's Cool Britannia now, innit? I wonder if DC knows (or remembers) the identity of the fellow who wrote marches under the overall title of Pomp and Circumstance or the other one wot wrote I Was Glad (when Clegg resigned) and Blast Blair with Sirens. One might wonder if he thinks that Cameron Carpenter is a family cabinet-maker? More to the point, what might he have answered had Letterman asked him who wrote I Love You, Samantha?

That said, had he been asked who Jesse Norman is, he'd still probably have managed to surprise us all with the reply "a famous soprano from your great country"...

Yes, OK, it's all too easy to have a pop at people in high places when they're put on the spot in public and their minds go blank, but if one is to be charitable about his particular one's predicament when interviewed by the Man of Letters, it was probably his memory rather than lack of knowledge that let him down here; after all, it was that which enabled him to forget that he'd left his kids in a pub a while ago, wasn't it?...

I can't remember where I left me coat...

[mercia]

That said, had he been asked who Jesse Norman is, he'd still probably have managed to surprise us all with the reply "a famous soprano from your great country"...

or "the MP for Hereford"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Norman

[rauschwerk]

I forgive him not knowing Thomas Arne...

I don't. Arne went to Eton!

[ahinton]

or "the MP for Hereford"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Norman

I think that you rather missed my point (and, in any case, Jesse Norman is, strictly speaking, the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire at least until any boundary changes occur that might make some difference to that), which was that, mindful of the recent undignified (on DC's part) altercation between DC and JN at HoC over JN's successful whip-round for support for abandonment of HoL reform plans, DC might have preferred, given such an opportunity, to identify "Jesse Norman" as anything other than an MP from his own party...

Anyway - as you were...

[mercia]

I think that you rather missed my point

more than likely

try again

[ahinton]

more than likely

try again

I just did, didn't I?(!)...

[mercia]

ah, I see

I got lost in all the abbreviations

DC and JN at HoC over JN

[amateur51]

[SNIGGERMODE] Oh gosh, chaps. That Cameron didn't know what Magna Carta meant. [/SNIGGERMODE]

[SMUGMODE] And he didn't know who wrote Rule Brittania, either [/SMUGMODE]


When I heard this on the Today programme, I wondered just how long it would take.

Nurse! The screens! An emergency sense-of-humour failure in FoR3