Opinion Off the record

Was David Cameron being catty about the Queen? On Tuesday, the British prime minister was overheard telling New York mayor Michael Bloomberg that she “purred down the line” when he called to tell her that Scotland had voted “no”. Unfortunately for him, the microphone was listening, and so was the rest of the world. The Scottish vote now has a slightly lurid glow, and Cameron is to apologise for the casual misogyny that his remark betrays. It can’t help the Conservative leader at a time when his credibility at home is running low, Labour’s Gordon Brown has emerged as the unlikely hero of the Scottish referendum and the 2015 elections are around the corner.

But then, history is what happens when world leaders don’t know the mic is still on. During the British election campaign of 2010, then PM Gordon Brown had a chat with a difficult voter and was later heard complaining about the “bigoted woman”. Incidentally, and to no one’s surprise, he lost the elections. In 2011, US President Barack Obama and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy were caught having a good old-fashioned gossip about Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu. While Sarkozy called Netanyahu a “liar”, Obama regretted having to deal with him regularly. Israel was not amused. In Seoul the next year, Obama was heard telling then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with missile defence issues after the 2012 presidential elections and till then he needed “space”. Medvedev replied that he would “transmit this information to Vladimir”.
Beneath the press conferences and soaring speeches lies a world of political exchange less lofty. And every now and then, the mic catches history with its pants down — less clothed in noble intentions but much more colourful than previously suspected.