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Gammon is a pejorative term popularised in British political culture since the 2010s. The term refers to the colour of a white person's flushed face, which purportedly resembles the type of pork of the same name. [1] [2] It is characterised in this context by the Oxford English Dictionary as occurring "in various parasynthetic adjectives referring to particularly reddish or florid complexions". [3] By 2018, the term had become popularised in British political discourse to describe right-wingers and Brexiters. [1] [4]
A 2004 sports feature in The Observer described Rupert Lowe as the "gammon-cheeked Southampton chairman". [5]
In 2010, Caitlin Moran wrote that British Prime Minister David Cameron resembled "a slightly camp gammon robot" and "a C3PO made of ham" in her 13 March column in The Times , [6] later collected in her 2012 anthology Moranthology. [7]
In 2015, Ruby Tandoh called Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood a "walking gammon joint". [8]
In 2017, children's author Ben Davis tweeted a picture of nine members of a BBC Question Time audience and referred to them as "the Great Wall of Gammon", [9] leading to the term becoming popularised, particularly on social media. [8] [10] [11] [12] [13]
In 1604, John Marston wrote "Your devilship's ring has no virtue, the buff-captain, the sallow-westphalian gammon-faced zaza cries" in The Malcontent . [14]
In 1622, John Taylor wrote "Where many a warlike Horse & many a Nagge mires:Thou kildst the gammon visag'd poore Westphalians" in his verse poem The Great O Toole. [15]
The gammon-cheeked Southampton chairman blamed the sacking of Paul Sturrock on a 'constant stream of negative and unfair media coverage.