Asides

Cameron’s New Year message quote came from ‘Seabiscuit’ shown on BBC2 on 23 December

David Cameron’s New Year message contains a history lesson of arguable provenance claims the Evening Standard’s Londoner:

“For us, the strong economy of the future will be built on a strong and responsible society. The Emperor Hadrian, when asked how Rome would be rebuilt after a devastating fire, replied: ‘Brick by brick, my citizens; brick by brick.’”

Now surely, with an education at Eton and Brasenose, Oxford, Cameron didn’t just lift a quote from the film, Seabiscuit, and attribute it to Emperor Hadrian without checking its historical veracity? Is there some genuine historical-source for the quote? Let’s hope so, but the Londoner fears there isn’t.

Seabiscuit was shown on BBC2 on 23 December. So now we know what the Tory leader, or perhaps his speechwriter, may have been doing that afternoon. Cameron should at least have consulted his Eton and Oxford contemporary, Boris Johnson, a classicist who has made TV programmes about the Roman Empire. Do they not talk to one another any more?

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