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David Cameron: I want to be Harry Potter (but Brits probably think I'm the evil wizard Voldemort)

The British Prime Minister admits to being potty for Potter

Matilda Battersby
Monday 01 July 2013 16:26 BST
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Potty for Potter? David Cameron has admitted that anybody with "any sense" would like to be the Boy Who Lived from JK Rowling's novels
Potty for Potter? David Cameron has admitted that anybody with "any sense" would like to be the Boy Who Lived from JK Rowling's novels (Getty Images/ Warner Bros)

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Britain’s muggle Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted to a bunch of students in Kazakhstan that he would like to be the boy wizard Harry Potter.

During a Q&A session in the Kazakhstan capital Astana, Mr Cameron showed good knowledge of JK Rowling’s books – joking that anybody with “any sense” would swap jobs with the Boy Who Lived in a bid for a different kind of power.

But our Premier also suggested that his reputation at home is closer to that of the evil wizard Voldemort (aka He Who Must Not Be Named).

Asked which character in the JK Rowling books he would like to be, Mr Cameron said: "My daughter is nine years old, she's just started to read all the Harry Potter books so I'm sort of rediscovering them all over again."

"I can think of all sorts of characters you don't want to be and I suppose in the end you know if you've got any sense you want to be Harry Potter. That must be the correct answer.

Speaking of Harry’s nemesis, You Know Who, Mr Cameron showed his Potter prowess by not naming him directly: "But I suspect people in Britain might want to paint me in a different role but I'll let them do that, I won't make the work easier for them."

In Rowling’s novels the Prime Minister of the Muggle Community of the United Kingdom is one of the few non-magical folk with official knowledge of the world of witchcraft and wizardry inhabited by Harry and his pals. The PM is traditionally informed of the existence of this community on the night of their election.

His magical counterpart, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, meets with the muggle PM on a number of occasions in Rowling’s seven-books. Notably when there are threats to the non-wizarding population such as the mass breakout from magical prison Azkaban, or when Junior Minister Herbert Chorley is put under a poorly cast Imperius Curse and begins acting like a duck in the House.

Mr Cameron would doubtless like a few years at Hogwarts to learn how to cast a spell over the voting public. That, or to use the intervention of dark magic as an excuse for one of his frequent U-turns.

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