Hardcastle
Former Labour leader (and current MP for Doncaster North) ed Miliband missed yesterday’s State Opening of Parliament to pursue his new, part-time career as a radio 2 DJ, filling in for Jeremy Vine. As we reported yesterday, he has discussed, inter alia, lavatory cisterns with listeners. Curiously, Miliband used to disapprove of MPs seeking additional employment. ‘We’ve got to settle the issue of MPs taking second jobs once and for all,’ he declared in 2015.
MINISTER for immigration Brandon Lewis waffles on BBC1 that President Donald Trump’s visit can’t be announced because dates have not been agreed. What nonsense. The Queen announced the 2018 Commonwealth Summit, although no date is set, and nor has the host UK city been agreed. If the Government was keen on a Trump visit it could have used the Queen’s Speech to force his hand on dates. Trump might have enjoyed getting a name check in the Queen’s Speech. This much-anticipated but tricky visit now seems to have been kicked into the long grass.
COMEDY veteran John Cleese, 77, enthuses on Twitter: ‘Delighted that Vince Cable is standing for the Lib Dem leadership.’ A long-time party supporter, Cleese claims he turned down the offer of a peerage from former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown in 1999. ‘Paddy was going to offer me one for political services,’ he said. ‘But I realised this involved being in england in the winter and I thought that was too much of a price to pay.’ Perhaps he hopes Sir Vince will repeat the offer. There’s no rule saying life peer comics can’t winter abroad.
THE Duchess of Cambridge’s swift intervention, saving the Countess of Wessex from a bad fall as she tried to get out of a carriage at Ascot, sent a shiver down the spines of watching courtiers, who know Kate won’t always be on hand to rescue toppling royals. ‘Camilla (pictured) finds it difficult to step out of carriages, particularly while wearing new shoes and an evening gown,’ says my source. ‘But at least she makes use of the helping hands offered by coachmen. The Queen will only accept help from Prince Philip.’
STANLEY Johnson, 76, Foreign Secretary Boris’s lively, ex-MeP father, performs a handstand while promoting a More4 TV documentary on the joys and pitfalls of being elderly. Watched by another participant, ex-editor eve Pollard, he duly performs this feat, coins from his pockets raining on to the floor. ‘That was excellent!’ comments well-built Ms Pollard, who, mercifully, isn’t tempted to try this gymnastic move herself.
IT can be tough to cover the Scottish political scene from far-off London, and George Osborne’s Evening Standard proved it with its incisive take on Jo Swinson’s elevation to the deputy leadership of the Lib Dems: ‘Ms Swinson, who regained her East Dunbartonshire seat from the DUP in the general election...’ It was of course the SNP’s John Nicolson she trounced. And gay Mr Nicolson was never likely to join the DUP, given their opposition to same-sex marriage.