The needle that will break the camel’s back

Nora Lee Notzon, a Republican commentator, was talking on the podcast, Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC), about the Epstein Files and the impact on Keir Starmer. She said, “I think we saw a failure as a leader and this is probably just a needle that will break the camel’s back.” This is a mashup of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” (the final annoyance in a series of events that makes a situation unbearable) and “a camel through the eye of a needle” (used as part of a comparison to indicate that something is impossible or extremely difficult to accomplish). The latter phrase comes from the passage in the Bible (Luke 18:25), “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”. “Camel” is the shared word here that causes the mental hiccup. You can hear the malaphor at 11:22 in this YouTube clip:

A tip of the toque to Mike Kovacs for hearing this one and sending it in!