SWAG

Express     September 9, 2013

This cartoon by Bob from The Telegraph mixes two news stories: the break-in at Buckingham Palace (see the post), and the comments by UK Prime Minister David Cameron's passionate defence of Britain's "proud history and contribution to world civilisation" after a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin was reported to have said during a briefing to the Russian media that the UK was "a small nation that nobody pays any attention to". Read more >>

THE CARTOON

The cartoon shows guard reading a newspaper outside Buckingham Palace. The headline reports Cameron's claim that "Britain is still a force to be reckoned with". Meanwhile, behind the guard's back, a burglar is climbing back out over the fence with a bag marked 'SWAG'.

EXPLANATION

The joke is that if we can't even protect Buckingham Palace from burglars, then Cameron's comments about the UK "still being a force to be reckoned with" are pretty laughable.

VOCABULARY

1. To reckon with someone or something is to consider or treat them as a serious opponent, problem, etc. They were already a political force to be reckoned with.
2. Swag is an old-fashioned, informal term for goods that have been stolen.