Dave And The Pig. Could Have Been Made Up.

[Zacs-Master]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/09/isabel-oakeshott-piggate-david-cameron-claims-deranged_n_8269558.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

I feel a lawsuit aproacheth.

[Peter Pedant]

Silly silly gairl !

then why did she write it and how much is it worth ? in libel damages that is !

[ichkeria]

True or not I certainly won't be forking out to buy this piece of trash

[jno]

she's covering her own back here, having previously defended the claim; she's never said she personally knew it was true and is now more eager to pass the buck.

Highly unlikely to be any lawsuits, I would have thought - Cameron won't want the coals raked over again. I suspect Ashcroft still knows where too many bodies are buried*.

*NOT LITERALLY, okay?

[sandyRoe]

Sometimes a dignified silence is the only way to go. And the porcine partner isn't in any state now to spill the beans.
There's no smoke without fire.

[mikey4444]

Far be it for me to come to dave's aid but I expect he didn't "defend" himself, as he was keeping a dignified silence...as is Corbyn by the way.

[Gromit]

Depends how it is written in the book which none of us have read.

If she wrote something like "One back bench MP says Cameron joined a drinking society at University whose initiation ceremony involves porking a pigs head".

Then that is entirely permissable. She is not saying Cameron did it, just that he joined a group that allegedly does do it. I doubt Cameron would sue.

[jno]

Gromit, I haven't read the book, thanks to my terrifically busy schedule, but here's the Mail's serialisation of it, as written by Ashcroft and Oakeshott

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3242550/Cameron-pig-bemused-look-face-future-PM-took-outrageous-initiation-ceremony-joining-Oxford-dining-society.html

It does specifically name Cameron.

[zebo]

If he tried to deny it, there'd be those, here especially, who would claim No smoke without fire. By saying nothing, he's occupied the high ground and a legal case would be a disaster for him.

[ToraToraTora]

all sounded a bit improbable to me anyway, Dave is doing the right thing.

[Gromit]

// A distinguished Oxford contemporary claims Cameron once took part in an outrageous initiation ceremony at a Piers Gaveston event, involving a dead pig. His extraordinary suggestion is that the future PM inserted a private part of his anatomy into the animal’s mouth.

The source — himself an MP — first made the allegation out of the blue at a business dinner in June 2014. Lowering his voice, he claimed to have seen photographic evidence of this disgusting ritual.

My co-author Isabel Oakeshott and I initially assumed this was a joke. It was therefore a surprise when, some weeks later, the MP repeated the allegation. //

As I assumed. She didn't say Cameron did it. She says someone said he did it.