Cameron pig
© AFP 2015/ Ben Stansall
Bonfire capital of the world, Lewes in Sussex, southern England, has set fire to its biggest ever 'Guy' on Thursday marking the anniversary of Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up London's houses of parliament in 1605 while poking fun at Britain's Prime Minister.

A giant statue of a naked David Cameron with a pig's head on his lap wearing union jack boxing shorts was paraded through the streets of Lewes.


"This is the biggest one we've ever done. I think it's the biggest one that anyone's ever done," Jason Winter, Borough Bonfire Society chairman, said.

The 50 foot wooden effigy depicting Britain's Prime Minister on a golden throne with a swine relates to allegations made in an unauthorized biography 'Call Me Dave' that Cameron put a "private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's head during a university initiation ritual — claims, he denies.


Each year seven bonfire societies parade through streets of Lewes carrying controversial effigies. People often describe the event as "anarchic", but Jim Etherington from Cliffe Bonfire Society said: "The days when fireworks were thrown and barrels rolled down through the town are long gone".

But those memories still hold strong for some locals. One of them told Sputnik:

"Another year they blew up Margaret Thatcher."

"Everyone carries their burning torches down to the town center, where they throw them into a huge burning fire before taking in turns to jump over the blazing mess," a Lewes local told Sputnik.

"I saw a shop go up in flames once and when the fire brigade turned up they launched fireworks at them! Great fun - but that was back in the 1980s."

This year's effigy of a naked David Cameron with a pig's head on his lap may have gone up in smoke but the catalyst to ridicule what he might have done still lingers.