What’s the difference between Piers Gaveston and the Bullingdon Club?
The Bullingdon Club is the other drinking society Cameron was known to be a member of. Most of the sonorous members of the Bullingdon are old Etonians. The prime minister was one such member, as was the London mayor, Boris Johnson.
They wore a bespoke uniform of tailcoats, waistcoats and bow ties, which could cost thousands of pounds, making membership difficult for ordinary students. One MP who was once asked to join the club said he walked out of a gathering in disgust. “What it basically involved was getting drunk and standing on restaurant tables, shouting about ‘f***ing plebs’. It was all about despising poor people,” he told the Daily Mail of the scene reminiscent of film The Riot Club, based on Laura Wade’s play Posh.
What is the Piers Gaveston Society?
“Piers Gav” is highly exclusive, made up of a self-selecting group of 12 undergraduates. The men-only club, named after the alleged male lover of Edward II, king of England from 1307 to 1327, was founded in 1977 and carries the motto: “Fane non memini ne audisse unum alterum ita dilixisse.” It translates to:
Truly, none remember hearing of a man enjoying another so much.
David Cameron belonged to both clubs.