British PM turns sheep rescuer

London: He may be struggling with a string of political challenges, but British Prime Minister David Cameron has been hailed as a hero after he rescued a sheep in trouble.

Cameron was on his way back from a visit to a farmer near his home in Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire when he heard the bleats of the animal calling out for help. He instantly jumped into the mud with his two armed police guards and waded through the freezing swamp to rescue the ewe, which had ventured into the mire to rescue a lamb when the Prime Minister came to its rescue. "This ewe has been named Swampy and she`s alive and well. I`m not saying I`m going to be a farmer, but I love the countryside," Cameron said in reference to the incident earlier this month. "When I got there, David was in the swamp, waist-deep in mud, along with the two police, who had all gone in there to help drag this sheep out. He was brilliant, pulling, pushing and shoving. He was covered in mud, he looked a mess," farmer Julian Tustian told the `Daily Telegraph`. The 43-year-old farmer, who says the ewe has now fully recovered from its ordeal, added the Prime Minister often liked to visit his farm during lambing, having grown up with sheep himself. Cameron had spent around 30 minutes in the lambing shed with the farmer and his partner, Shen Paget, before heading home for the evening when he alerted the farmer to a sheep he had spotted in the swamp with two lambs. This was not the first time the Tory leader had come to the aid of stranded sheep close to his home and parliamentary constituency, as he has helped Tustian when an ewe was struggling to give birth to two lambs back in December 2007. Cameron had acted as the farmer`s assistant until the lambs were born. PTI