Video and photo links: Here are the Morris Dancers who danced around David Cameron as he did his reshuffle on Friday
The Charlbury Morris Dancers danced around the Prime Minister as he carried out his Cabinet Reshuffle on the platform of Charlbury Station, Oxfordshire on Friday afternoon. His mobile phone reception was particularly poor, so he kept on having to redial MPs to tell them he’d promoted them.
There are several photos here on the Charlbury Morris Dancers website, of them dancing at Charlbury Station at the “Cotswold line redoubling celebrations” with David Cameron present. This photo shows Cameron coming down the steps with the Morris dancers in the foreground. (Yes, I did carefully scour the photos to see if I could spot Cameron in the background on a mobile phone – but, sadly, no joy.)
Here are the Charlbury Morris Dancers in action at Oxfordshire Museum in May 2010. They are dancing “Black Joke”. I wonder if that is the dance they did while Cameron was doing his reshuffle…. Warf. Warf.
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2 Responses to “Video and photo links: Here are the Morris Dancers who danced around David Cameron as he did his reshuffle on Friday”
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Burbler-in-chief
Forgive the belated comment on what is now old news, but on behalf of Charlbury Morris I’d like to thank you for the nice publicity.
I was on the platform (dancing) for the event in question and I can assure you that it was nothing like the portrayal in The Sunday Telegraph (but you probably suspected that).
Those events are tightly scripted, so Charlbury Morris started dancing on time (not something we are known for). We were supposed to do just one or two dances, but after about 15 minutes of dancing and no PM we were starting to get knackered and took a break. Then I noticed that the only TV crew had pulled their camera (see the right side of the third picture in your link) and appeared to be doing an interview by the drive in front of the station (which we later realised was the PM giving his reaction to Fox’s resignation). Eventually we saw the entourage heading across toward us so we started dancing again, but, as requested by the PM’s security detail, we moved away as the PM descended the stairs. At the FGW celebration itself the PM was his usual calm and collected self and there was not a hint of the crisis, save for the very end. After some posh nibbles and chatting with the FGW and Cotswold Line Promotion Group dignitaries the PM was overheard to take his leave by saying something like, “Now I have to go and find a new defence minister.” We didn’t quite know what to make of this until we returned to our pubs and homes to hear the news.
You can get good idea of the event from a report on on Witney TV (a web-based TV service from the PM’s constituency).
http://www.witneytv.co.uk/videos/charlbury-double-railway-track-opens
Note that the PM even has time for a short interview with the reporter, but he is on his mobile the moment he gets down the stairs.
The Telegraph did get one thing right. Mobile phone coverage is particularly bad around that part of town.
Richard – thank you very much indeed for this description and the link!