British PM left kid at pub

That_Anonymous_Coward

And he is in charge of a country??
Wait I’ve got it! All the CCTV and spying… so he knows where he left his kid!

Antinous / Moderator

On the exculpatory hand, said child went to the lavatory without telling anyone and the family left in two cars, each with one parent and some security folks assuming that she was in the other car. On the other hand, the PM apparently has three or four glasses of wine with lunch on his days off, which would certainly make me forget a few things.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  But he’s already proven to be ineffective at running a country anyway, so it still sticks.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    If this incident were in keeping with his record so far, his eight year-old daughter would have stayed at the pub with her cronies to collect swag in return for influence peddling. Mr. Cameron loses cabinet ministers faster than most people shed hair.
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  Most parents when leaving locations in separate vehicles often stop before they get in the car and speak to the other parent. The fact they have a freaking security detail who missed this minor detail is appalling.
  - http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
    
    Checklists people!

http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

I can just imagine what the GOP would make of President Obama and his wife doing something like this…

PJDK

It doesn’t really work as an attack because far too many people have done it. If you say “what an incompetent idiot” you end up calling 50% (?) of all parents incompetent idiots – not good for votes
- http://darkmobius.com Andrew Molloy
  
  I think either way you can certainly call their security protection incompetent idiots without any caveat.
bcsizemo

Really it would be business as usual. Right wing media would pick it up and blow it to stratospheric proportions, while the rest of the media would glaze over it and look at the right like they are being over reacting children. Which would go over about as well as throwing water on a grease fire… Rinse, repeat…

I lean to the right, but good grief can they take a mole hill and turn it into a mountain.
- vinculture
  
  The pair of them should get jail time for such a crass act of stupidity. But I guess it’s not such a big deal to you because Dave’s a conservative…?
  
  Got it.
  - dragonfrog
    
    Jail time? For the terrible sin of leaving an eight year-old in a safe public place for fifteen minutes? Right.
    
    By that standard it would be much easier to find some small enclosed space (say, a disused phone booth) and declare it not-a-jail, and the rest of the country’s land mass to be jail. In case a human is ever discovered who hasn’t done worse this month, they can be informed they are free to go stand in the phone booth as a reward.
    - vinculture
      
      Looks like you need a hand with those goalposts you’re trying to move. Child abandonment is a crime; they are not above the law.
      
      But you think their act of neglect should be ignored?
    - dragonfrog
      
      @vinculture:disqus (I can’t reply to your post directly – threading limits?)
      
      Per wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abandonment , UK law prohibits abandoning children under two years of age. This is reasonable – babies and toddlers can’t take care of themselves. Eight year olds without significant disabilities, on the other hand, can take care of themselves in reasonable circumstances.
      
      An eight year old could quite legally cycle to the pub on her own to buy a snack. Her parents could drop her off at the pub for a snack and let her walk home. Not freaking out when an eight year old is out on her own is not neglect, and certainly not ‘child abandonment’, it is sane parenting.
      
      You seem to see this as if they’d left her on the frozen tundra without shelter. She was in a pub, with walls and a roof to keep off the elements, a phone, a bathroom, food and water, and adults she could turn to if she needed something
    - Hakan Koseoglu
      
      The society is getting more and more stupid and panic-stricken. There was a good example given a couple of weeks ago on Radio 4 where a commentator was talking about her experience of taking some kids to London centre to a museum for the first time a couple of decades ago. A girl managed to get onto the wrong train in the Underground and by the time they were organizing the remaining kids, she had asked around, jumped out at the next station, walked across the platform, got onto the train going the other way and then came back, all happy.
      
      Same teacher took an other group of kids in the same age group a couple of years ago and a group of 4 kids did the same, they were so panic-stricken, they did not talk to anyone because you know, the grown ups they don’t know are all pedophiles and will snatch them immediately, managed to ride the train all the way to the last stop and had no idea what to do next.
      
      A 11 year old girl should be able to handle herself in public all alone perfectly. No reason to panic.
      
      On the other hand, I did wonder, if it wasn’t the PM + the missus but a poor and uneducated family, how quickly the authorities would slap an ASBO and then take away the kid from the family citing some obscure rule.
  - bcsizemo
    
    Did you actually READ my post, or simply skim it and rail off when I mentioned leaning right…
    
    I didn’t reference the article, that’s why it’s called a reply – just like I’m replying to you and not the content in the article. I made no mention of punishment or what happened in the article at all, hence the part where I was replying to Romeo.
    
    I got it alright, but I’m not sure you did.
  - GregS
    
    I know that in America you’re fast approaching the time when it will be a major felony for parents to leave any child under the age of 18 alone in a public place, but the rest of the world has not yet reached that degree of paranoia.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      How’s that Madeleine McCann thing working out for you?
    - CH
      
      Antonius: “How’s that Madeleine McCann thing working out for you?”
      
      So you are saying it should be a major felony for parents to leave any child under the age of 18 alone?
      
      I agree with GregS… talking on parenting boards with US parents it seems like the parents over on your side of the pond would prefer to never ever leave their child alone in any way until they are more or less grown up. Citing all kinds of “what if” scenarios (what if there is a break in… what if the house caught fire… what if…). Where as here on my side of the pond kids around the age of… well 8 and up at least in my country… are expected to be able to handle being for some time alone.
      
      Honestly… they don’t break if you dare to trust them.
    - vinculture
      
      I’m not in America, and nor are the Camerons. Thanks for playing though.
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  I’d be surprised if Mitt Romney hadn’t already done something similar if not far worse.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/OMHO6ER5QJE3SIZ35VAXIRCLYM Stephan
    
    Check ‘Dogs against Romney’
    - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
      
      surely that was a homage to National Lampoon’s Vacation.
GregS

Except that this would never happen to President Obama. Because (a) he would never set foot in a pub except when surrounded by a phalanx of staff and secret service agents and press handlers and cameras there to film him condescending to socialize with ordinary people, and (b) because, as I understand it, children are usually not allowed to enter bars or pubs at all in America.
What I took away from this story is that the British PM actually goes to the pub with his family like any normal person (except for the security guards of course).
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  the British PM actually goes to the pub with his family like any normal person
  
  Any normal person who goes home to Chequers.

iRoy

Reported in News Internationals Sun “newspaper” the day they need to distract from the former Prime Minister’s evidence at the Leveson Inquiry.

Oh look the ex-PM has just called Rupert Murdoch a liar in the Royal Courts of Justice.

starfish and coffee

Indeed. It happened a couple of months ago, but The Sun saved it for a rainy day.
- http://www.facebook.com/danhuby Dan Huby
  
  I heard about it via both the Guardian and BBC websites.
  
  I’ve no idea why this classes as ‘news’ however.
  - Hakan Koseoglu
    
    They are just reporting that it’s been reported by other agencies. So whoever broke this first really wanted to distract the public from something else. I wonder from what {cough}Leveson enquiry{cough}.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nigel-Humphries/1287698638 Nigel Humphries

Of course the headlines in Murdoch’s Sun would have been totally different if an unemployed mother in a council flat had had a similar accident. The Sun readers would have been directed to bay for the blood of an irresponsible, neglectful mother who had so many drinks she ‘forgot’ her child. The Sun would have called for Family Services to investigate etc etc.

Luckily for Cameron he is one of Murdoch’s ‘right sort’ of people.

SomeGuyNamedMark

Parents make a mistake. Big whoop.

As someone noted you’d think his security detail would’ve noticed though.

sickkid1972

Shame of a Nation : PM abandons child in alcoholic vice-den scandal. “He ain’t a proper parent, hanging’s too good for him.” says our Editor.
*Arrglarrrgggllllhhaarrglaarglhharrrglargh!!* *headsplosion*

Wreckrob8

Next time they should just leave Cameron in the pub with a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop to keep him quiet and take the kid home.
Nobody will miss him.

http://twitter.com/MrAaronSwainEsq Aaron Swain

Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of the British pub, and I respect it as an institution. But I think that preventing minors from entering bars in the US was probably a step in the right direction for this very reason.

Just_Ok

Kids get left in the car outside. That’s better?
dragonfrog

I disagree, personally.

When we were in Brazil recently, we took our daughter (not quite two at the time) into a bar for lunch, not quite sure if we’d be asked to leave. Instead, a waiter brought out a high chair. It seems so civilized!
Antinous / Moderator

Pubs are not the same as bars. They frequently serve lunch and have more in common with a restaurant than with a cocktail lounge at that time of day.

Fred Cairns

Local Satirical News Site had this to say about much-maligned and much-sidelined Coalition Member Nick Clegg:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news-in-pictures/news-briefly/clegg-left-forgotten-in-pub-for-15-minutes-2012061129991