HICKEY
AFFECTIONATELY putting his arm around son Boris when they met during this week’s Tory conference in Manchester, Stanley Johnson, pictured, is the one prominent family member the Prime Minister can still rely on.
While Stanley’s publicity-hungry daughter Rachel and younger Tory MP son Jo have both caused the PM plenty of headaches, Johnson senior – himself a one-time Remainer – is letting it be known he’s “on the side of his eldest son”.
AS the Prime Minister attempts to fend off 20-year-old groping claims, I’m reminded late Labour Foreign Secretary George Brown was considered among the worst political offenders in recent decades.
With Brown also famously known to have enjoyed a tipple, one Westminster contemporary claimed: “George was pretty keen on stroking anything.”
REFLECTING on the fact Coronation Street alter-ego Ken Barlow is about to turn 80 on the show, William Roache – himself already 87 – notes the character’s prolific love life over the years.
Roache insists: “I think he’s finally settled down. Those womanising days are definitely over!”
STAR Trek actor Sir Patrick Stewart, at an event in Los Angeles marking the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ classic album Abbey Road, recalls an eventful long ago encounter with Sir Paul McCartney.
Appearing opposite Jane Asher at the Bristol Old Vic in 1964, Stewart remembers word excitedly spreading when her Beatle boyfriend arrived in the building.
On hearing young Patrick was a fan of his Aston Martin DB4, McCartney nonchalantly handed him the keys before ordering the thespian to drive them to nearby Bath – allowing the couple to enjoy each other’s company on the back seat.
Pointing out he had to nervously endure Macca demanding they go faster throughout, Sir Patrick concludes: “All I could think was, if I kill Paul McCartney, that will be the Patrick Stewart legend for the rest of time.”
MORE than 40 years after their “will-they won’t-they” relationship in hit sitcom Butterflies first gripped the nation, Wendy Craig and Bruce Montague touchingly reunite as a pair of “wily pensioners” in an upcoming episode of BBC One’s Doctors.
Recalling the Butterflies storyline, which saw dispirited housewife Ria contemplate an affair with Montague’s businessman
Leonard, the 85-year-old actress, pictured, says many women related to her character’s predicament. Montague, 80, mischievously adds to TV Times: “Whereas I had female fans sending marriage proposals and naughty suggestions.”
LONGTIME Westminster correspondent and biographer Michael Crick unearths a 66-year-old letter from the young Margaret Thatcher to then Tory party chairman John Hare. She politely wrote: “Having unexpectedly produced twins – we had no idea there were two of them until the day they were born – I had better not consider a candidature for at least six months.”