Actor Philip Glenister, better known for playing DCI Gene Hunt in BBC One’s Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes was spotted at David Cameron’s PMQs 15 December.
One character is known for being at the top of his professional apex, facing controversy over his hardline policies, and the other character is, well, David Cameron.
Cameron reportedly told Glenister he was big fan of the shows, the police procedural drama in which Glenister plays DCI Gene Hunt. He was the original hard-boiled detective: brutal, rebellious and politically incorrect.
But DCI Gene Hunt and Prime Minister David Cameron actually have a few things in common: it's not the first time they've been connected.
BACK TO THE EIGHTIES
Labour’s 2010 anti-Conservative campaign saw a jaunty picture of Cameron perched on the bonnet of Audi Quattro. The slogan urged voters “Don’t Let Him Take Britain Back To The Eighties”, Cameron’s oval domical perched on top of Gene Hunt’s body.
Relishing nothing more some political joshing, the Conservatives reclaimed the campaign with their own slogan “Fire up the Quattro, It’s Time For Change.”
Eighties revival seemed to be the Cameron's meme to the 1922 committee on Wed 12 December, Cameron telling his backbenchers that the next year will be tough. "Tougher than the first two years of Margaret Thatcher's Premiership."
"There's no feelgood factor" Cameron told his MPs.
He went on: "We must not be blown off course. We have to get to 2015 in good working order with our Coaltion partners, despite our differences on AV and Europe, working for the country."
With Cameron harking back to the 1980’s, the climax of DCI Gene Hunt’s unlikely popularity, Huffington Post UK asks who is really the most likeable?
FUNNY MEN
Cameron was in ribald form in the chamber this week, jibing at Miliband with barely concealed joy. This Conservative corker had MPs rolling in the aisles, with more than a few guffaws from Labour’s side:
"No one in this House is going to be surprised that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats don't always agree about Europe but let me reassure him he shouldn't believe everything he reads in the papers. It's not that bad, it's not like we're brothers or anything," Cameron told Miliband.
Could Cameron have got away with this classic Gene Hunt reposte though?
"They reckon you've got concussion – but personally, I couldn't give a tart's furry cup if half your brains are falling out.
"Don't ever waltz into my kingdom playing king of the jungle."
SEX APPEAL?
Politically incorrupt, brutal copper Gene Hunt was an unlikely sex symbol despite his rampant misogyny.
Cameron too has been accused of making sexist comments. Telling Angela Eagle MP to “Calm down dear” in April was an unlikely choice of remark considering not only its patronizing overtones, but its association with Michael Winner.
More recently Cameron PMQ’s repostes have hinted at an unsavoury mind . He suggested Nadine Dorres was “frustrated”, which prompted a lot of old-boy laughter in the chamber, but alienated Cameron from the ladies, despite the glamourous SamCam sticking by his side.
Cameron was greeted with teenage screams at a World Skills event in East London but this reception was an isolated incident for the old Etonian, whose rating on the crush-o-meter is dampened by Chancellor’s George Osbourne’s unlikely following, with Boris overshadowing both of them in the sex-symbol stakes.
So DCI Hunt one, Cameron nil, on the sex-appeal front. But Cameron’s sexist faux-pas have been Lilliputian goofs compared to Hunt’s clanger to a female police officer.
"Listen luv, how about you detect me some Garibaldi biscuits to go with this cuppa."
And then of course there’s Hunt’s comment that puts them poles apart:
“There will never be a woman prime minister as long as I have a hole in my arse.”
Cameron gave a heartfelt apology for his bungles, telling the Sunday Times: "I don't go in there with pre-scripted lines and sometimes it just comes out wrong. That's exactly what happened.
"It just came out wrong, and then I couldn't get through the noise and the laughter. And maybe I should have done better. But, you know, I make mistakes."
So Cameron wins over Hunt no that one, appearing to be an all round better human being. A recent poll shows Cameron's popularity is up too, his veto of the Eurozone treaty giving him a “Brussels bounce.” The Conservative leader streaks ahead of Miliband and Clegg with voters rating him as "sticking to the qualities he believes in."
However with unemployment sky-high and Cameron coming under increasing pressure to provide security for depressed Brits, it's a toss up between the two characters as to who has the like-ability factor. Glenda Cooper wrote for The Daily Telegraph:
“Women like Hunt because he isn’t a bastard, or at least not to his team-in a world of short term contracts, job insecurity and portfolio careers, Hunt’s undying loyalty to his squad make us wistful for a time gone by, when you had a career for life."