British PM leaves eight-year-old daughter at the pub

12 Jun 2012, 8:21 am   -   Source: AFP
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British Prime Minister David Cameron accidentally left his eight-year-old daughter at the pub following a mix-up with his wife, his Downing Street office confirmed.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron accidentally left his eight-year-old daughter at the pub following a mix-up with his wife, his Downing Street office confirmed.
  
Nancy Cameron wandered off to the toilets while the premier and his wife Samantha were arranging lifts from the pub near his country residence outside London, and the couple only realised she was missing once they got home.
  
A Downing Street spokeswoman said the Camerons took full responsibility for the incident, which happened a "couple of months ago", and that police bodyguards who were with them would not face disciplinary action.
  
"The prime minister was distraught when he realised he had left his daughter in the pub," the spokeswoman told reporters after the incident, which was revealed by The Sun newspaper.
  
Downing Street initially said it was Cameron who then raced back to get his daughter after they had been separated from her for 15 minutes -- but the spokeswoman later said it was actually his wife who returned to the pub.
  
The spokeswoman said they had been having Sunday lunchtime drinks with friends at The Plough in Cadsden, near the prime minister's country retreat of Chequers in Buckinghamshire, southeast England.
  
They were there with their children -- Nancy, six-year-old Arthur and 22-month-old Florence -- and two other families.
  
"There was a mix-up. Sam thought the PM had Nancy, the PM thought Sam had Nancy," the spokeswoman said.
  
"There were also other children going in different vehicles, and as soon as they realised that an error had been made they did something about it."
  
The spokeswoman would not confirm whether or not Cameron had drunk alcohol when the incident happened.
  
"As you know, the prime minister is a very busy man but he always tries to live as normal a life as possible with his family, and that does mean going to different occasions with friends," she said.
  
She said he "occasionally" went to the pub.
  
The Downing Street spokesman said there were no plans for an official inquiry into a possible security lapse but said his security arrangements were "always kept under review."
  
"No one's going to face disciplinary action. This is an error," she said.
  
"They're their children, they take responsibility for their own children."
  
But British media also picked on the fact that news of Cameron's blunder emerged on the same day as the government announced an expansion of a government scheme to help 120,000 so-called "troubled families."
  
The revelation comes just weeks after a new biography of Conservative leader Cameron said the prime minister was an expert at "chillaxing" and switching off from the pressures of running the country.
  
The book by journalists Frances Elliott and James Hanning said he enjoyed a few glasses of wine with Sunday lunch and played tennis against a machine nicknamed "the Clegger", after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
  
It quoted an aide of Cameron as saying: "If there was an Olympic gold medal for 'chillaxing', the prime minister would win it."
  
"Chillaxing" is a newly coined portmanteau British slang term mixing the words "chilling" and "relaxing".
 

David Cameron

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