Radio Kenneth

It’s time. Someone has to stop Steve Bell. I don’t know what horrific Polaroid photos he’s got of Alan Rusbridger that have kept in in business this long, but enough is enough. This is the horse that broke the camel’s back…

I have some questions:

Why is there a horse’s head at this press conference? Whatever it is, Mr Cameron seems to know, and is explaining its presence to Mr Obama. Is Mr Cameron responsible for placing the horse there? Perhaps, although why would he do something for which he then has to apologise? Clearly, what the two leaders are faced with is not the Horsegate horse itself (the police horse in question, Raiser, hasn’t travelled to America to embarrass Mr Cameron – nor could it – Raiser is dead). So, is it a statue of Raiser? An ice statue? Has someone carved an ice statue of Raiser to embarrass Mr Cameron, and then placed it at the centre of the press conference? Perhaps, although the language used by Mr Cameron suggests otherwise – he describes it as “the tip of a very small horseberg”.

It would seem that the horse head is made of ice, but the head is just the “tip” – so, does the rest of the “horseberg” lie beneath the surface of the floor? Is the ice horse floating? Is the floor of the room a dark liquid? There are no ripples, so the ice horse must be incredibly still. It hasn’t just floated into view, it has no tell-tale wake. Therefore it has been floating there some time, enough time for the surface of the floor to reach a perfect calm. Have the two leaders only just noticed it? Or have they been studiously ignoring it? Why would the President’s press team choose to hold the press conference in a room which is basically a huge swimming pool filled with an oily liquid, with an ice horse floating in it?

Were they forced to change rooms at the last minute? It can’t have been planned – unless the US press team, or someone very senior within it, wanted this moment to happen, to embarrass Mr Cameron (surely someone on the UK press team would have checked out and veto-ed this room if it had been a planned venue, what with there being a potentially embarrassing ice horse floating in the middle of it). A late arrival to the oily pool room, with its floating ice horse, would explain why the two leaders are having to deal with the presence of the Horseberg “on the hoof” like this.

The “Horsegate” situation must be playing upon Mr Cameron’s mind, because, upon entering the room, and seeing the ice horse, he realises that the horse is somehow “meant for him”. One would think that, as host, Mr Obama would take it upon himself to account for the presence of the horseberg. But no, Mr Cameron steps in.

Mr Cameron’s explanation is a curious one. “Don’t worry,” he says. But how he goes on to comfort Mr Obama is to reassure him that this horse head made of ice is part of a larger horseberg. Don’t worry, he’s saying, the problem (if an ice horse head in a press conference is a problem) is actually bigger than it appears. But not much bigger, because it’s a just “a very small horseberg”. Don’t worry, this is just a small part of a much bigger thing which is very small.

It’s hard to tell exactly, but the horse head doesn’t look peculiarly small. It looks roughly life size. Are horsebergs generally much larger? Are they the size of icebergs? Is a horseberg which is life size much smaller than normal horsebergs?

Or is Mr Cameron coining the word “horseberg” himself, as he spies this iceberg which is remarkably horse shaped? Is this a guilty conscience at work? It’s fairly unlikely that Mr Obama would be cogniscent of “Horsegate”, so why would Mr Cameron bring it up? Or is he not bringing it up at all? Am I just reading that into the image? Is Mr Cameron simply saying: “Don’t worry, this is not just a disembodied horse head made of ice… it continues beneath the surface, as part of a larger ‘horseberg’, which in itself is very small”.

But how does he know? How does he know it’s not just a disembodied ice head? After all, there are no giveaway ripples. Mr Obama seemingly doesn’t know, so how come Mr Cameron is so full of the facts? One can only assume that it is MR CAMERON HIMSELF who arranged for the ice horse to be here. What power does he wield that he can stage-manage this moment? I have to say, I’m impressed.

Impressed, I should say, by Mr Cameron’s influence, not by the cartoon, which I think is very bad indeed.