Cameron's speech lost in translation in provincial Yorkshire

British Prime Minister David Cameron became the latest world leader Friday to drop a clanger by making an adverse "off the cuff" comment, with his microphone switched on.

It meant that within minutes the words he uttered in private about the people of Yorkshire in northern England were broadcast around the nation.

It wasn't the first time Cameron has come a cropper this year, the first time earning him a rebuke when he referred to the Middle Eastern refugees heading to Britain as a "swarm".

This time the prime minister was in Yorkshire, famed for its "straight forward speaking" Yorkshiremen, when his unfortunate words slipped out.

Jokingly, as he rehearsed a keynote speech in private, he was heard to say "We just thought people in Yorkshire hated everyone else, we didn't realise they hated each other so much."

Cameron was not on camera, but practising with his microphone switched on, ahead of delivering his speech before television cameras.

Later Cameron said in an interview as he watched a cricket match: "I was picked up saying something that was not meant to be broadcast but it was a joke."

"I joked by saying I thought Yorkshiremen had it in for everyone else not for each other ... words to that effect but it was a total joke but it's been picked up and I suspect I'll be getting a bit of jip for this."

Cameron, laughing off the gaffe, added that he had been forgiven "by two of the greatest living Yorkshiremen", one of them the legendary Yorkshire hero and cricket referee, Sir Dickie Bird.

The leading evening newspaper in Leeds, the Yorkshire Evening Post, said Cameron's comment appeared to refer to the wrangling among different areas of Yorkshire over how to take control over more powers and money from Whitehall.

In an editorial Friday the paper's sister paper, the Yorkshire Post, took the incident more seriously, commenting: "Many will regard David Cameron's disparaging and disdainful generalisation of 'Yorkshire' as unbecoming of a statesman, and totally- unbecoming of an Eton-educated Prime Minister who was promising to preside over a 'One Nation' government on the steps of 10 Downing Street four months ago."

"Others will be more charitable and interpret the unguarded comment as the views of a Prime Minister who has become totally exasperated with this county's inability to speak with one voice when it comes to devolution," said the paper.

"By drawing reference to a rather stereotypical and outdated view of Yorkshire, Mr Cameron's gaffe totally overshadowed one of the most profound speeches of his second term to date," it added.

The editorial concluded by saying the prime minister only has himself to blame for his message becoming lost in translation. Endit