Lyrical Dave – PM’s union speech packed with song lyrics

David Cameron’s speech on the union this morning prompted many questions. Why was he in London? Why were there so many empty seats in the Olympic velodrome? Etc, etc, etc. But Mr Steerpike wants to know why the speech was peppered with song lyrics. ‘We don’t walk on by,’ said Dave – unlike Dionne Warwick. The ‘North Sea’ is, apparently, ‘a light that never goes out’ – now we know what The Smiths were warbling about.

Gordon Brown once professed his love for the Arctic Monkeys. It seems that his successor has got hold of the band’s fourth album, which contains the song ‘Brick by Brick’:

‘And we built it together. Brick by brick. Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland. Brick by brick.’

Cameron then told us: ‘The outcome is still up in the air’, which he could have sung to the tune of ‘Thirty Seconds to Mars’. And his conclusion – ‘we want you to stay’ – would have been more emphatic if they had used Rihanna’s version of the same words?

The England football team used to have bets on how many lyrics they could slip in to World Cup interviews.