General Education fail with Magna Carta on Letterman, Dave

I didn’t think Cameron did too badly on Letterman, all things considered. The quality of an Eton education showed in that he knew Magna Carta was signed at Runnymede in 1215, although my grammar school education achieved the same result at a cheaper cost.

David Cameron on David Letterman. Magna Carta? Search me, guv…

However, I was disappointed in Cameron’s failure to wing it when asked to say what Magna Carta meant in English. His general edukayshun was obviously lacking. Magna is in many English place names, such as Minterne Magna and Dave is more widely travelled than I am. Sheer observation will show that the Magnas are usually bigger than the Parvas so large or great would be a good guess.

Minterne Magna and Parva. Not so hard to infer Magna might be great, eh, Dave?

It’s not too much of a stretch to get from Carta to Charter, particularly given the context. Great Charter would have done, and our Dave should have paid attention at school more. After all, he got to copy out 500 lines of Latin text as a bollocking for smoking cannabis at Eton. Since even an Ermine could infer Magna Carta would be Great Charter with his low-grade education I would have though our Eton-educated and Oxford PPE first class honours Dave might have been up to it. Okay I mightn’t manage under the TV cameras but then I’m not hired to run the country. It’s the failure to act imaginatively and resourcefully under pressure I find disturbing.