everyman fail

David Cameron's uncertainty over how many houses he owns - flagged by Johann Hari in The Independent - appeared at the end of a fairly long interview feature in The Times. Here's the quote in context:

I only get one flash of that Mr Nasty streak in Mr Nice when I raise the question of the Camerons’ various properties. We had been talking about his bewilderment about the depth of dislike that some people in the Labour party have towards the Conservatives: “Where I think Conservatives tend to feel Labour are misguided and wrong, there are some people in the Labour Party who just think the Tories are awful and evil, which is ridiculous and wrong.”

In my attempt to explain why they might have these feelings – I confess to shuddering whenever I see that photograph of young David and Boris in their Bullingdon Club regalia – I mention the four houses: “The four properties thing is rubbish. Touching that you believe everything you read in the newspapers!” You patronising git, I exclaim.

“I don’t mean it like that, but…” So how many properties do you own? “I own a house in North Kensington which you’ve been to and my house in the constituency in Oxfordshire and that is, as far as I know, all I have.”

A house in Cornwall? “No, that is, Samantha used to have a timeshare in South Devon but she doesn’t any more.” And there isn’t a fourth? “I don’t think so – not that I can think of.” Please don’t say, “Not that I can think of.” “You might be… Samantha owns a field in Scunthorpe but she doesn’t own a house…”

So Cameron's confusion arises when he rejects what he sees as the media's version of the Tory party as a group of landed grandees out of touch with ordinary people. The kind of people who when asked, "how many properties do you own?" answer with seemingly genuine uncertainty in their voices.

Incidentally, that humble-sounding "field in Scunthorpe" might just have something to do with Samanatha Cameron's father's property where she grew up - Sir Reginald Sheffield's 300-acre Normanby Hall estate, which has been in the family since 1590. Anyone?

A small point: having land and money are not automatically bad things, and having land and wealth does not automatically make you a bad person. It is, though, somewhat difficult to pose convincingly as a man of the people who feels our pain when your privileged and wealthy upbringing (and life to date) has apparently left you unable to count how many houses you own.