Ephraim Hardcastle

THeReSa may cuts short her alpine walking holiday to ‘crack on’, having Brexit talks with French president emmanuel macron. She struggles to unwind from the pressures of office, like Labour’s Gordon Brown. He cut short his first summer break as Pm in 2007 due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Brown aide Damian mcBride later revealed that then Tory leader David Cameron ‘pleaded’ for the Pm to return, saying: ‘I can’t go away until you do … we won’t get a holiday at this rate.’ mcBride recalled: ‘Gordon laughed and said he’d let him know.’ FOREIGN Secretary Jeremy Hunt is keen to make amends to his Chinese wife, Lucia, I hear, after embarrassingly describing her as Japanese. He bought flowers and chocolates and apologised. My source adds: ‘Jeremy’s painfully aware this error made him look odd in the eyes of the public. He needs to get his “normal family man” image back on track fast.’ Surely Hunt is relaxed about his image – not ‘on No 10 manoeuvres’, as party rivals suggest. aPRoPoS mr Hunt’s error over his wife, the terrier-like political correspondent of Channel 4 news, michael Crick, 60, says: ‘I once asked someone at a party: “Have you met my wife Barbara?” She interrupted, saying “no, I’m called margaret”.’ Crick adds: ‘She’s now my ex-wife.’ oh dear! AFTER police were called to Boris Becker’s southwest London home this week over an alleged domestic incident between relatives and his estranged Dutch wife, Lilly, pictured with her grandmother, the former Wimbledon champion tweets the words of ex-American football player Trent Shelton: ‘Life has taught me that you can’t control someone’s loyalty. No matter how good you are to them, it doesn’t mean they’ll treat you the same… Sometimes the people you love the most turn out to be the people you can trust the least.’ Cue sentimental gypsy violins! VoTeD mPs’ ‘favourite political broadcaster’ in a Comres poll, BBC presenter andrew neil, 69, advises his followers: ‘a new story about terrible consequences of Brexit with no deal now appearing on average every 12 hours. Some are genuinely worrying, some clearly drivel. I’m told government [is] behind a number of them to dragoon Tory mPs behind Chequers agreement.’ Surely not! PUBLICITY-prone actress Jane Fonda, 80, apologises for posing atop a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun targeting US warplanes in the 1960s, saying: ‘I am just so sorry that I was thoughtless enough to sit down on that gun at that time.’ Why say sorry now? She’s promoting a documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts. ITV’s news at Ten presenter Tom Bradby returns tonight after a four-month absence due to insomnia, easing himself back by working a two-day week. ‘apart from the always-interesting Tom, news at Ten is regarded by some as a cure for insomnia,’ carps my source. Email: peter.mckay@dailymail.co.uk