When Pop & Politics Collide – 25 Excruciating Moments

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David Cameron is such a big fan of Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit that he once visited the Shepherd’s Bush Empire incognito to see them.”There’s quite a good way of sneaking in there,” he said. It’s not the first time music and politics have collided in a cringeworthy manner. Here are 24 more painful moments which prove why politics and pop should never mix…

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Cameron’s love of The Smiths is legendary, and it’s difficult to gauge who is more offended by this, Morrissey or Marr (Johnny not Andrew). Marr took to Twitter to demand the PM stop listening to his former band, while Morrissey published a diatribe attacking Cameron, who he reported with “fitting grimness… hunts, shoots and kills stags.” Dave says he’ll carry on listening regardless.

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If Dubya’s dancing was hilarious then check out this guy! Former Russian President and vodka fan Boris Yeltsin – who died in 2007 – is maybe more famous for his pissed auntie-at-a-wedding grooving than his politics. On a diplomatic trip to the US, he was apparently once found outside the White House in his undercrackers attempting to hail a cab in order to track down pizza.

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When Tom Watson mentioned Drenge in his resignation letter to leader Ed Miliband it was a step too far into WTF?! territory. Whatever next? Michael Gove spotted at a Purity Ring gig? Danny Alexander expressing love for Foxes? Oof, don’t go there.

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If all Mitt Romney’s gaffes during the Presidential Election Campaign of 2012 were laid end to end they’d stretch around the world and finish back up in Utah again. None were more excrutiating than the one where, in a bid to ingratiate himself with young black voters, he stood among a group for a snap and bizarrely broke into the Baha Men’s ‘Who Let The Dogs Out?’ Has to be seen to be believed.

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When George Osborne went on the Andrew Marr show, the producers decided to invite in the only three men in Britain probably richer than him; the pop group Keane. The band performed ‘Silenced By The Night’, and rather delightfully Osborne – on realising the camera is on him – starts jiggling back and forth on his seat looking like a man trying to circumnavigate a crowded platform.

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The previous French President, Monsieur Bling himself – Nicolas Sarkozy – didn’t so much hang out with pop stars as marry one. He divorced his first wife soon after taking office. A month later, the world’s press went into a frenzy as he started flagrantly stepping out with ex-supermodel and singer Carla Bruni, 13 years his junior and two inches his senior. They were married within a year.

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Red Ed Miliband’s Desert Island Disc choices reflected the tastes of a man who – were he marooned on an island – would probably relish the peace and quiet. Neil Diamond, Edith Piaf and Robbie Williams were chosen; so far so disco at a care home. The South African national anthem was his No. 1 which is pretty odd, and A-ha were pretty much the coolest inclusion with ‘Take On Me’.

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Former US President George Bush Jr. might not have been popular but he was comical on occasion. His malapropisms were legendary, but nothing quite beats his African tribal dancing in the Rose Garden in 2007. And there was the awkward moment when Kanye West said Bush “doesn’t like black people” during a Hurricane Katrina telethon; Bush later called it “the most disgusting moment of my presidency”.

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And after a lifetime of name-checking every band in popular culture and having his advances rebuffed, one finally yielded to Dave Cameron’s dubious charms without him having to do anything! Haim played the Andrew Marr show, and at the conclusion of their performance Este Haim shouted “That’s for you D.C., it’s all about you.” Cameron’s thumb soon delivered news of mutual admiration on Twitter.

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