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October 05, 2006

The Dave Test

Davecameron I used to have an informal test for absurd right-wing fogeyishness. If my interlocutor insisted on calling me Finkelshhhtein, they passed the test, and could duly be regarded as right-wing fogeys.

This however restricts those who could be tested to people whom I knew. So now I have replaced it with my all new Dave test.

Columnists who, when attacking David Cameron, attempt to belittle him by calling him Dave pass the test.

Congratulations to my good friend Stephen Pollard who, after many years of trying, has finally qualified.

Posted by Daniel Finkelstein on October 05, 2006 at 03:53 PM in David Cameron | Permalink Bookmark and Share

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Dave Test:

» Mea culpa from Stephen Pollard
Banged to rights by Dan the Fink. His point is entirely valid, and I feel a bit of an idiot for calling David Cameron 'Dave'. I know how much I hate it when I am called Steve or Steven, and... [Read More]

Tracked on October 05, 2006 at 03:59 PM

» Mea culpa from Stephen Pollard
Banged to rights by Dan the Fink. His point is entirely valid, and I feel a bit of an idiot for calling David Cameron 'Dave'. I know how much I hate it when I am called Steve or Steven, and... [Read More]

Tracked on October 05, 2006 at 05:15 PM

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We do it all the time.

Posted by: Peter | 5 Oct 2006 18:46:52

And yet you have no problem with your friend calling Gordon Brown 'Gordie', or George Monbiat, 'Moonbat', or even Cameron supporters, 'Cameroons', all of which are on his home page?

Posted by: Matthew | 6 Oct 2006 09:00:49

And what does that make me, Dan?

Posted by: Gabor Kovacs | 6 Oct 2006 10:04:21

"Cameron" will do. Dave indicates overfamiliarity, even if it is not affectionate.

Posted by: Chris Gillibrand | 6 Oct 2006 17:18:28

A Cameron by any other name is still an appeasing Neville Chamberlain.

Posted by: Joel | 6 Oct 2006 18:42:54

"Finkelshtayn" simply is the correct German pronunciation. Ask Bernard Wasserstein.

Posted by: Vladimir Pnin | 8 Oct 2006 00:34:57

Dear me, Mr Finkelstein, you really must have too much time on your hands if you're worrying about columnists "belittling" David Cameron, by calling him "Dave". Your implied rebuke seems feeble -- or just disingenuous -- in the extreme, and, deliberately or not, misses the obvious point. I don't think the current Tory leader ever refers to himself as a "shallow, phoney twerp", either. But that is what he reveals himself to be every time he opens his mouth. And that his critics refer to him as "Dave" is merely a short hand way of indicating their justified contempt for his grotesque, misguided and patronising attempt at matiness. Whether others find this strange or not is my informal test for identifying absurd Liberal-Democrats retreads who couldn't recognise real conservativism if it jumped up and bit them on the bottom.

Posted by: Derrick Hill | 8 Oct 2006 13:54:35

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