Larry: The Untold Tail - Chapter Four

Chapter Four — Dave, Pigs, Pubs and Promises.

For those eagle‑eyed ones among you, you may have noticed I skipped out the Royal Wedding in 2011 — and there’s a reason for that… I got properly mugged off and he didn’t invite me did he.

They made me prance around in that ridiculous bow tie for a photo-shoot that dragged on for hours, and that was the end of it.

Once again, everyone gets a piece of Larry. My image, my brand, my face — sells a shitload of papers and magazines, and I’m left to just sit there and watch the circus unfold while the humans cash in on the spectacle…. Jokers.

Anyway, as you can clearly see, after 15 years — I’m totally over it. Honestly, it barely registers any more. Not even bothered. Not even sure why I’ve even mentioned it, I’m so not bothered…

And let’s be fair, between me and he who shall not be named, who would you rather be these days?! … exactly.

That said, I have to say I have a great deal of respect for Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales — for the bravery and quiet dignity with which she has navigated an extraordinarily difficult period, and the consistent grace she has shown throughout.

By 2012, I had settled into life at No.10 well enough to understand that the place operated according to one very simple principle — nothing stayed normal for long.

After a nice calm evening (relatively speaking — it’s still government after all) you drift off on a cushion, only to be rudely awoken at 0630hrs by an absolute racket outside.

You take a look out of the window and there’s some numpty from the Government awkwardly explaining to the entire British media the latest humiliating fuck-up.

How on earth they do it… I’ve no idea.

Everyone’s been fast asleep fur fucks sake, yet these clowns still somehow manage to cause a full-blown national crisis before anyone’s even had their breakfast.

Is it any wonder I sleep as much as I do — I’m utterly drained all the time.

It’s exhausting.

Talking of humiliating fuck‑ups, I present the Prime Minister himself, Mr. David Cameron, who in June 2012 managed something truly spectacular.

He forgot his own daughter and left her in a pub.

Now, before I’m accused by anyone of inventing this story for comedy value, I should stress…. it actually happened.

Dave and Sam went to the Plough Inn near Chequers with their children and friends for Sunday lunch. When they left… Dave got into one car with his security team while Sam and the other children got into another car. And they drove home…. but nobody had Nancy.

About fifteen minutes later when they got back to Chequers they realised their eight-year-old daughter Nancy was missing.

I remember sitting in the hallway when the rumours made their way through No.10.

I thought somebody must be taking the piss.

But they weren’t.

Dave had gone to the pub with his family and actually forgotten one of his kids.

The best part for me was that the Government was smack bang in the middle of its troubled families programme. Dave couldn’t have picked a more awkward time for this monumental balls-up.

While the government were lecturing the nation about how families needed to pull themselves together, the Prime Minister was, as ever, far too busy thinking about himself — and made a “minor” error of judgement and forgot one of his kids.

Karma is a bitch, right Dave? And that’s just the beginning — the reckoning hadn’t even really started yet.

It didn’t get much better for Dave, especially after a bizarre run-in involving a loaf of bread. He was on a “roll,”

A journalist asked him how much a loaf cost and he didn’t have a clue.

To be fair to Dave, in the five years I lived with him I never once saw him nip down to the local corner shop to buy a loaf.

But he then claimed to own a bread-maker and to make his own… I never witnessed that either. I think it was all bullshit.

It was brilliant in a ridiculous way — the idea that the Prime Minister was suddenly expected to know the price of a loaf… and Dave thought the best thing to do was to dodge the question by insisting that he makes his own.

He got very upset about the whole bread cost affair. He even asked me — finding comfort in the fact that I didn’t know either.

For a start, nobody elected me Dave, and importantly, I don’t even eat bread. Why on earth would I know how much it costs?

Look at that? — does any of it strike you as remotely plausible?

Luckily for Dave, along came the Olympics — and the whole country went completely fucking mental.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have concerns. London was about to host the world, and almost overnight everyone pretended we have a flawless transport system, and the ability to organise a colossal sporting spectacle which will entertain a global audience.

Every time a politician starts telling everyone how brilliant something is going to be, you can almost guarantee that something will shortly go spectacularly wrong.

But to be fair, and I still can’t quite work out how, they pulled it off. My only theory is that we got the rest of the world so absolutely fucking hammered they didn’t notice the cracks.

Suddenly everyone was an expert on cycling and rowing. I’m no fan of cyclists. I’ve had a few close calls. Nearly being run over on more than a few occasions — and I hate water with a passion.

That said, I don’t have anything against cycling or rowing, I just found it remarkable how so many people must have spent their entire lives secretly following rowing and cycling, and had just simply forgotten to mention it — until Team GB started to bring home the medals.

No.10 was full of flags, athletes, and politicians who wanted to be photographed next to athletes.

Especially Dave — he was all over it, basking in the moment like it was his own. I couldn’t work out what the hell was going on.

Dave and his fellow cronies were happily taking the plaudits and adulation as if they had won the medal themselves.

These athletes had spent years and years training, enduring gruelling hard work, discipline and relentless effort to become the elite at something.

And the politicians had spent years — I’m not sure doing what, other than talking bollocks, messing things up, and becoming extraordinarily skilled at standing next to the people who had actually achieved something.

It’s a very big difference.

I preferred the athletes.

Along came 2013. I can’t really remember what happened that year. Loads of stuff would have happened. But I can’t be expected to remember it all.

Dave was still there. Still shiny. Still smirking. Still talking about himself.

Always attempting to demonstrate he had a normal family life despite being surrounded by armed police officers, government officials and people who knew exactly where he was at virtually every moment of the day. Well, apparently anyway.

There was something rather strange about watching Dave try to be normal.

I had a simpler definition of normal.

Sleep. Eat. Walk around. Ignore everyone. Occasionally kill something. Avoid Dave.

It worked perfectly well for me. But I still had one major issue. Fucking Freya.

Our relationship had not improved. If anything, it had become more complicated.

But Freya is no mug. Very smart girl. She’d earned her place in the story by then. She was becoming quite famous herself, and she was the only other cat in Westminster who understood the importance of maintaining an image.

So we played the game.

By 2014, things were getting messy.

I didn’t really know what was actually happening, but the UK felt like things were changing. Something was definitely going down. Some country called Europe was lurking in the background — the Tories were wrestling with a growing faction of people who wanted Britain out of the European Union…. whatever that meant.

And then…. this “thing” just crawled out of the woodwork: his name was Nigel Farage. He was everywhere… you couldn’t get away from him; whichever way you turned, there he was, pint in hand in a pub, styling himself as a man of the people….

Apparently, I’m not allowed to use the word I want to, so you’ll have to work it out for yourself…

Nigel Farage is a political “stunt” (wink wink).

So….. UKIP was gaining influence, unsettling the political landscape, and Dave eventually promised to hold an EU referendum if the Tories won the next general election.

And in 2015, they did — Dave and the Tories won the election.

A Conservative majority. No coalition and no Nick Clegg.

But Dave had made a promise. And once politicians make promises — first, they don’t tend to stick to them, but on the rare occasions they do, they often discover that promises have a nasty habit of coming back to bite you in the balls.

But we’re not getting into all that Europe and Brexit stuff right now.

No—fucking—way.

We’ll do that in another chapter…. when I’ve had a proper skinful.

I can’t be expected to take that on sober.

Anyway, before all of that went down, there was one other little matter for Dave to deal with….

…. a pig.

Politicians are capable of producing some truly spectacular stories about one another, but even by their standards, this one was just extraordinary.

A book was published containing a series of allegations and revelations about Dave’s past. One of which was particularly bizarre and troublesome.

I just have to say it… there’s no other way of putting it.

At university… David Cameron (allegedly) put his cock in a dead pig’s mouth.

I have to say allegedly, because I’ve got no interest in being sued, dragged through the courts and all that drama. But, he definitely did it.

It’s 100% true. Facts. Those rich posh boys do some proper weird shit.

The story exploded, and the country became obsessed with pigs.

Pigs on television, in newspapers, on the internet. There were pig jokes everywhere.

This was easily the strangest political scandal I witnessed in my fifteen years in government. And believe me, I’ve witnessed a lot.

Dave denied the allegation. But that didn’t matter. Once the story had escaped into the wild, there was absolutely no chance of putting it back in the box.

Humans love a scandal, but they especially love a scandal involving something completely fucking ridiculous.

The whole country spent several weeks discussing Dave and a pig….

…. and I found myself wondering whether I should be concerned.