Ephraim Hardcastle

THE Economist magazine damns Boris Johnson as a ‘clown prince’, quoting ‘a senior Tory’ as saying: ‘He’s a s**t who doesn’t give a s**t about anything but himself.’ If he succeeds in becoming Tory leader, they add, ‘it will be unfortunate for the country.’ Johnson’s attractive friend, political aide Carrie Symonds, isn’t mentioned but she may have parsed the piece carefully. Her father, Matthew Symonds, is an editor at the magazine. SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, 57, attacks Nigel Farage on Radio 4 for being ‘narrow-minded’ over immigration. When the late Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy was battling alcoholism, he was attacked 130 times on Twitter by SNP official and ‘cybernat’ Brian Smith, who called him a ‘drunken slob’. Blackford, who followed Smith on Twitter, later won Kennedy’s Ross, Skye and Lochaber seat. Smith resigned his SNP post on the day of Kennedy’s funeral, admitting his comments had been ‘entirely inappropriate’. ENNOBLED after a lacklustre six-year stint as Metropolitan Police Commissioner – somehow amassing a £5.8million pension pot – Bernard HoganHowe lands a job in public relations with Powerscourt, which says it ‘provides advice to the world’s top companies’. As it happens, Hogan-Howe was regarded as secretive and obstructive by many media types who had to deal with him. Notoriously, he was also criticised for refusing to apologise to D-Day veteran Field Marshal Lord Bramall for raiding his home over false child abuse claims. Eventually Bramall, 94, got an apology – and £100,000 in damages – from the Met. HERE’S Sir Elton John pictured in Philadelphia on his 300-date world tour, where he paused his pianopounding to tell fans: ‘You bought the singles, the albums, the eight-track, the cassette, the CD, the DVD, the merchandise, but most of all, you bought the tickets to the shows.’ Kerchingggg! WOMEN’S Equality Party leader Sophie Walker, 47, noting the Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable’s mangled reference to the ‘erotic spasm’ of Brexit, complains: ‘I had “clitoris” in my leader’s speech and didn’t get invited on to Radio 4’s Today. Can’t believe Vince’s erotic spasm was more interesting!’ POLITICAL reporter Jane Merrick recalls interviewing former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg in 2010 when she was seven months pregnant: ‘He asked me who the father was...cringe’. Clegg is said to be haunted by the admission that he slept with ‘up to 30 women’ before settling down with his Spanish wife of 18 years, lawyer Miriam. LBC’s pet Left-winger James O’Brien, 46, argues in his first book, How To Be Right, that many opinions held by ordinary people are ‘frankly wrong’. A friend comments: ‘James is nicer than this makes him sound. He used to work at Aquascutum, where he would arrange very generous discounts on suits worth £500 for his friends.’