Sunday, November 11, 2007

You sound like a really useful guy.... any good with leaks?

Parkinson is the chat show for political party leaders, I think Harold Wilson was the first to guest but I may be wrong. The latest was David Cameron though. He told the story of being introduced to Kate Moss at a charity dinner and being unsure what to say. He recounted the conversation going thus:


"I remembered she actually has a house in my constituency and we'd had these terrible floods in West Oxfordshire and so I said, 'Very nice to meet you, very sorry about the flooding in your house... I know your local pub has been flooded, I've been to see the publican and I know you like to go to the pub and so I know it's going to reopen in six months... So I went on like this, twittering on, and she turned around and said, 'God, you sound like a really useful guy, can I have your phone number?... "I went back to my table and said 'The good news is, I met Kate Moss and she wanted my telephone number, the bad news is I think she thinks I'm something to do with drainage."


It turns out she assumed he was a plumber; apparently!



I would be interested to here Kate Moss's side of the story, if she has any recollection that is. It does strike me as unlikely that she believed she was meeting a plumber at a flashy charity do. Though it is believable that she had little idea who David Cameron was, and that is no slur on him but her social awareness generally. But why tell this story?

It has a wonderful self-deprecating style, Cameron positions himself as being a little tongue-tied in the face of such a famous celebrity, much like the average guy in the street; he also plays down his own importance quite jokingly. Since the criticism that Blair received when talking about his religious convictions surrounding the war on Iraq, this perhaps is the correct tone for the chat show and Cameron's performance seemed focused on being likeable, normal and average. The permanent campaign is on!!

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