It all started with a plate....Cameron and Blair shared a teacher

Not all surprises about who has known who have come about through work projects. This one, a combination of unusual questions, curiosity and an above usual awareness of current political events came up with a connection that I suppose I have suspected had to exist for several years now.

A cousin was talking about an antique plate that he had seen and he wanted to know more about it. Made in 1810, he thought. It had a Royal stamp on it, but he couldn't remember much more about it than that. The first thing was to establish which Royal it might have been. Given the complexity of that period it meant a quick stop at the academically conflicted but speedy and instructive Wikipedia to check out if George III was well or ill at the time (to establish if Regency would have been an issue). This was followed by our making a random comment about when William IV was on the throne and subsequently looking him up as well. Wikipedia's gossipy side came to the fore and up cropped David Cameron as a descendant from one of William's children from the wrong side of the blanket, who had made 'an advantageous marriage'.

Next stage in the saga of the plate was to sound my mother out about the Royal pottery. She had been a potter for years and is still very interested in the subject. She came up with several very sane suggestions, one of which involved visiting a slow website.  While the site loaded in a chugging fashion, I nattered randomly and mentioned about the Cameron connection to William IV. "Oh", she said, as she also waited for more relevant words, "where did he go to school?". "Eton". "How old is he? Would he have been there under McCrum?".  Still chugging.... "Not sure, I'll check in a minute". "If he did he would have been there with a very great man".  Michael McCrum was a tutor of my grandfather's and a contemporary of my uncle's at Cambridge and had been sent to Eton as headmaster to sort out some problems with discipline.

By the time Cameron and co were at Eton, McCrum had returned to Cambridge. The headmaster that followed him was Eric Anderson. His previous post had been as housemaster at Fettes College, in Edinburgh. While at Fettes, he had been responsible for one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair! Further look-ups showed him to be a highly influential man, a past teacher of Prince Charles and a very good friend of the Queen Mother's.

Other political protegees include Boris Johnston and Rory Stewart.

The plate is as yet unidentified, some of the markings were not consistent with what they should have been, or not as described over the phone at least. It was a random conversation and not in-depth research, but in the light of all that is going on with the Leveson Inquiry at the moment, it is pretty intriguing that there is such a strong link between both Blair and Cameron through an influential man. Of course the problem for the inquiry is as much "Who Knew What" as it is with "Who Knew Who", but both are important in our current world. There is widespread interest in the whole concept of Who Knew Who, in terms of journalists, police and politicians and the flow of influence. The Inquiry has been fascinating and addictive.