First came the chicken, then the egg
Mr Cameron was struck on the shoulder as he emerged from answering students’ questions during a visit to a college in Cornwall.
Having been confronted with a giant chicken on Tuesday (sent by the Mirror newspaper), Mr Cameron joked: “Now I know which came first – the chicken not the egg.”
The Mirror says it is trying to add “much needed silliness to a po-faced campaign”.
The Tory leader was hit as he emerged from Cornwall College, Saltash.
The egg was thrown by a student who was inside the building as Mr Cameron was about to walk out. It glanced off his shoulder and splattered on the jacket of a police officer beside him, while the yolk also stained Mr Cameron’s white shirt.
Witnesses said the man who threw the egg was immediately led away.
The student was arrested and then quickly released after police established he did not have any more missiles with him, a Tory aide said.
The student was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt.
In a speech on law and order in 2006, Mr Cameron argued hoodies were often scared themselves, prompting his opponents to label it a “hug a hoodie” approach.
Cameron is not the first politician to fall victim to a stray food missile while electioneering.
During the 2001 campaign, Labour’s John Prescott was also struck by an egg after arriving at the Little Theatre, in Rhyl, north Wales.
Mr Prescott, who was hit on the back, later insisted he was acting in self defence when he responded by punching his attacker.
John Major was targeted as he tried to get elected as Conservative leader in 1992. After taking to the soap box to outline his pledges, he was greeted with a volley of eggs and engine oil.
But anger towards politicians have not been exclusively reserved for election campaigns.
Former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was set upon in March 1992 by a woman wielding a bunch of daffodils, during a walkabout in Marple Bridge, Stockport.
Three years later, Tory Brian Mawhinney was doused in orange paint outside the Houses of Parliament in a protest over the Tory Government’s crackdown on asylum seekers.
A security review was launched in 2004 after campaign group Fathers 4 Justice threw condoms containing purple flour at Tony Blair in the House of Commons. And in February 2006, a fathers’ rights campaigner smashed an egg over the head of then Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly outside a court in Greater Manchester.
Last year British National Party leader Nick Griffin was forced to abandon a press conference outside the Houses of Parliament under a hail of eggs thrown by protesters, while Business Secretary Lord Mandelson was drenched in green custard thrown by a climate change protester in March last year.
