Telling Porkies

It’s the opening battle for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and the opening salvo of the 2020 General Election. But you know it best as #piggate

The story is that whilst at University, David Cameron joined a secretive, debauched dining society known as The Gaveston Society. As part of the initiation ceremony, Cameron is alleged to have put his dick in a dead pig’s mouth.

Let that sink in a moment. The future Prime Minister of Great Britain is claimed to have stuck his cock in a severed animal’s head.

You would have to have a heart of stone not to find this utterly hilarious, and indeed a great part of the hilarity has come from watching loyal right-wing pundits trying to justify face-fucking a decapitated pig as the sort of crazy thing everyone does at university.

The pig element to the story is disgusting, new and hilarious. But the rest of the revelations about Cameron and his circle taking drugs? There have been questions about this in the public domain for 10 years. Unless Cameron is being accused of snorting cocaine off the desk in No.10, this is hardly likely to shock or upset many people.

So why attack Cameron at all? And why now?

Revenge is supposed to be a dish best served cold, but Lord Ashcroft and Paul Dacre clearly disagree. Lord Ashcroft — a long standing Tory supporter, donor of millions — expected Cameron to reward his largesse with a position of power. He didn't get it. His subsequent hatred of Cameron is the fuel behind the new biography which is the source of these allegations.

This book is being serialised by the Daily Mail, edited by Paul Dacre. Dacre is thought to bear a long-standing grudge against Cameron too, partially because Cameron isn't right-wing enough, and partially because Paul Dacre is feeling pretty pissed off that he currently isn't Lord Dacre. The main reason however for press hostility to Cameron, is that Cameron launched the Leveson Investigation into press behaviour and ethics following the revelations that the News of the World had hacked a murdered teenage girl’s mobile phone and hindered the police investigation into her murder.

Cameron launched the enquiry to cover all newspapers, not just the News of the World, and the industry had their dirty washing displayed in public for all to see. What came out of the enquiry was a Royal Charter to create a truly independent press regulator. This process is still ongoing. The press created IPSO to act as a regulator, but this organisation has been even more pointless than the entirely discredited Press Complaints Commission. The press are facing the very real threat of true regulation, and soon.

Revenge provides a good motive for launching the stories, but the aim is to remove David Cameron from power. The is unmistakeable in the ferocity of the attack — the press demands a scalp. Cameron has previously declared he wouldn't fight a third election as leader of the Tories, but the press and Tory hierarchy has decided he needs to go sooner rather than later.

One reason for this happening now is the surge of support for Jeremy Corbyn. A man who in the face of a universally hostile media became leader of the Labour Party, securing more votes within the Labour Party than there are members of the Tory Party, and who has added another 60,000 people to the party since he was declared leader. Corbyn is a man who has been widely derided in the media for not playing the media’s game. David Cameron is so threatened by Corbyn he declared the entire Labour Party a threat to national security. An army general echoed this by telling the press he plans to organise an armed coup in the event of a Corbyn premiership. He is clearly his own man, and that is a threat to the Establishment.

So a story about sticking a dick in a pig, is actually an attempt by the Establishment to remove the Prime Minister, and to secure Tory victory in 2020. It is an attempt at a non-military coup and an attempt to subvert democracy.