David Cameron and the #PigGate story — what’s really happening here?

I’ll be honest when I woke up this morning I didn’t expect to read a story about the Prime Minister supposedly sticking his ‘diddly’ in a dead pigs mouth. So where does the story come from and is it true?

The story itself features in Lord Ashcroft and co-author Isabel Oakeshott new unauthorised biography of PM David Cameron entitled ‘Call Me Dave.’ In the book, according to an anonymous MP there is a photo of Cameron sticking his genitals in to a dead pigs mouth during an initiation ceremony to join the Piers Gaveston Society at Oxford. When the media contacted the person who supposedly owns this photo however they did not respond and the MP refused to have his name put with the story.

The billionaire Lord Ashcroft was, at one time, the Conservative Parties largest donor. He donated £8 million to the Party in the run up to the 2010 election and apparently expected to be ‘rewarded’ with a top job in government. He didn’t get one, and so by the looks of things, has spent five years trying to dig up dirt on the PM. Ending up with a pig story with no evidence. And Prime Minister’s spokeswoman's response to this…

I am NOT going to dignify this book with any comment. The author has set out his reason for writing it.

Other issues arising with the legitimacy of this story include the fact that founders and members of the Gaveston Society have said Cameron was never a member, and so would never had gone through any initiation. Lacking in any evidence or even written name of the MP who claims this story is true makes this all the more unbelievable. As Ian Kirby, former political editor of the News of the World said in the Spectator:

Lord Ashcroft’s story about Cameron and the pig would not have passed the basic standards demanded by a tabloid newspaper.

He then goes on to write:

It is in the book because Lord Ashcroft has made the (probably correct) assumption that the Prime Minister has more on his plate than to sue him for libel over an unprovable allegation from 30 years ago.

Finally, this story does sound rather familiar to that of the Lyndon Johnson legend on how to ‘smash an opponent.’ Legend has it that Johnson, in one of his congressional campaigns, told one of his aides to spread the story that his opponent fucked pigs. The aide responded “Christ, Lyndon, we can’t call the guy a pigfucker. It isn’t true.” To which Johnson supposedly replied “Of course it ain’t true, but I want to hear that son-of-a-bitch deny it.”