66% of British people believe Lord Ashcroft’s allegations against David Cameron, but over a half say they don’t matter

Allegations against Prime Minister David Cameron of taking drugs and participating in unseemly initiation rites went viral in the UK on Monday, with the #piggate hashtag attracting tens of thousands of tweets. According to a new book by former Conservative deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, Call Me Dave, the current Prime Minister participated in drug-taking and obscene behaviour in his student days. The allegation attracting most attention is that David Cameron might have put a private part of his body in a dead pig in order to become a member of the Piers Gaveston Society.

30% of First Vedict users, the YouGov daily opinion sharing app (click here for details), believe the allegations and think they matter, while 36% believe them but do not find them important. Just under one in five say they neither believe the claims, nor find them relevant.

Downing Street has publicly refused to ‘dignify’ the book with a response to any of the stories in it, while David Cameron called the claims ‘utter nonsense’. According to the BBC, on a gathering of the Conservative party at the Carlton Club, the Prime Minister referred to Lord Ashcroft’s claim as ‘a stab in the back’.



