Ephraim Hardcastle
REPORTEDLY due to bag a knighthood in the New Year Honours List, does former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, 50, personify the proverb ‘nothing succeeds like failure’? His party lost 49 seats under his leadership at the 2015 general election and his pro-EU campaign failed in the 2016 referendum. He then went on to lose his Sheffield Hallam seat in June. Meanwhile, his insensitive claim that Brexit voters were mainly old people who’d die soon will hardly have helped the Remain cause. If it is ‘arise Sir Nick’, will his lawyer wife, Spanish-born Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, 49, relish becoming Lady Clegg? A feminist, she has complained of being referred to as Mrs Clegg.
APROPOS honours, top theatre producer Rosemary Squire, 61, due to become a dame in the 2018 list, was on the board of the Ambassador Theatre Group, which owns 11 London theatres. So was her husband Howard Panter, 68, who received a knighthood in 2013. Currently both are on the board of Theatre Co-Productions. The arts committee recommending honours to No 10 is chaired by a fellow board member, Rupert Gavin, 63. ‘No doubt Rupert will have recused himself when the wellmerited elevation of Rosemary was discussed,’ counsels my source.
SIR Tom Jones, 77, pictured, tells Radio Times: ‘I’ve never taken any drugs – I’ve never been interested in drugs – but I love British pubs. I’ve always been a drinker, but thank God it’s never got a hold of me. I’ve never had a problem with it.’ Nor a problem finding it, either. His Los Angeles home has a private bar bequeathed by its previous occupant, the late, permanently half-cut crooner Dean Martin. ‘He took all the booze,’ adds Tom.
TORY grandee Michael Heseltine’s overthe-top comment that Brexit might be worse than a Jeremy Corbyn government could turn out to be a gift to the Leave camp by upsetting Remainer Conservatives. Ennobled in 2001, the attentionseeking peer can’t be taken too seriously. While insisting he’s a democrat, he rarely bothers taking part in Lords business. Last year the 84-year-old former deputy PM said that after his mother’s pet alsatian, Kim, ‘had a mental breakdown’ he grabbed it by a choker chain and pulled it tight until the dog ‘went limp’. After animal rights groups protested, believing he’d killed Kim, he hastily announced that he hadn’t – without saying what state he left the animal in.
ALISON Steadman OBE, 71, whose new BBC series with John Cleese, 78 – his first since Fawlty Towers – is due to air in 2018, says in an interview: ‘John’s eccentric and I’m a bit eccentric myself. He’s also a cat-lover. So we’d start the day meowing, greeting each other like two friendly cats.’ A purr-fect way to start any day?
CHEERY broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, 69, reports: ‘Some Twitter troll has accused me of being condescending. I’m surprised he knows how to spell the word.’