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22 Sep, 2015 14:32

Hamming it up: Liberal Democrats mock ‘Cameron’s Pig’ at conference sing-along

Hamming it up: Liberal Democrats mock ‘Cameron’s Pig’ at conference sing-along

Liberal Democrat delegates are taking no prisoners at their Bournemouth party conference this week. Attendees will pay homage to Prime Minister David Cameron’s alleged sexual encounter with a pig’s head with a little ditty written especially for the occasion.

Set to the tune of ‘English Country Garden’, the satirical song contains the lyrics: “If your name is Cam, and you’ve been amorous with a ham, in an Oxford country garden.”

The lyrics were posted on Twitter by Lib Dem councilor Zoe O’Connell. The song will be performed at the end-of-conference party.

The latest addition to the Lib Dem Glee Club songbook comes after the Daily Mail published allegations on Monday concerning the PM inserting “a private part of his anatomy” into the mouth of a dead pig while at university.

Downing Street refused to acknowledge the claims, ruling out a formal response, but the Lib Dems have pounced on the opportunity to lambast their former coalition boss.

The Glee Club is a traditional event at the party conference. This year it will feature songs about GCHQ surveillance, former deputy party leader Simon Hughes and a dubiously named “Iraqi-cokey” to the tune of the “hokey-cokey.”

The Glee Club has previously come under fire for songs containing references to former leader Charles Kennedy’s alcoholism. Kennedy died earlier in 2015 after years of alcohol abuse.

One song in the club’s songbook features the lyrics: “Oh hear us Charlie when we ask/To share the contents of your flask.”

Another reads: “Charles Kennedy must be added to the list – a lovely little leader but a bugger when he’s p*****.”

The chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (Shaap) Dr Peter Rice, told The Herald newspaper the jokes were not helpful to their work.

“We are making a lot of good progress as a society in treating alcohol problems. Treating serious issues like this as a joke, is not helpful.”

Some of the songs were dropped this year as a mark of respect, but Gareth Epps, who helps produce the songbook, said all the lyrics referred to Kennedy’s illness “fondly.”

“The cover of the new songbook remembers the late Charles Kennedy, ‘a man more singed against than singing’ with at least four songs written in his honor,” he wrote on the Lib Dem Voice website.

We have had to think what the right thing was to do, given that some [were] written well before his rise to become party leader referred (fondly) to his illness.

“We are told by Charles’ family that he was fond of the songs about him; perhaps surprisingly! Out of respect, though, for this edition we have retired the Skye Boat Song ... not that we expect that will stop members of the Glee Club singing it.”

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