Ephraim Hardcastle
TWO references to Eton in his conference speech showed how far Old Etonian Boris has shifted from the era when Douglas Hurd failed to beat John Major to the Tory leadership after disavowing his old school. Boris even managed to puff his alma mater in his allusion to poet Thomas Gray. All Etonians receive a book of Gray’s poems on their departure. Clearly essential reading now for all aspiring backbenchers.
CHERIE Blair is no fan of Have I Got News For You according to producer Jimmy Mulville, who sat next to her at a dinner where she confided: ‘We hate that show, Tony and I, we watch it and we absolutely loathe it.’ Will the Blairs be tuned in to HIGNFY’s return to the BBC tonight to hear if Hislop and Merton congratulate them on their £312,000 stamp duty windfall?
BORIS and Carrie’s decorator Lulu Lytle, revealing that her Downing Street rattan furniture refurbishment cost less than £90,000, often advises customers to go elsewhere for quality goods. ‘You can buy a very nice rattan chair for £35 from Ikea,’ Miss Lytle, pictured, tells the Financial Times. Don’t tell the PM!
NADINE Dorries should look closer to home when berating the BBC over the large number of employees whose parents also worked there. My parliamentary abacus calculates that 49 of the 2020 crop of MPs are related to a current or former MP, including Stephen Kinnock, Hilary Benn and Angela and Maria Eagle. Before launching her conference broadside, Nadine should have consulted colleague Liz Truss. She complained in 2014 urging all parties to widen their selection of candidates ‘beyond the usual suspects’.
MEANWHILE, Andrew Marr chastises Nadine for accusing him of not being impartial and takes a swipe at his BBC employers for not defending him. ‘BBC bashing is the safest sport in the country fairground,’ he writes in The Spectator. ‘How can I put this? The BBC is not, as an organisation, exactly robust in talking back.’
CHIPS Channon, in his newly published Second World War diaries, speaks fondly of Scottish diplomat Archie Clark Kerr, who liked to show selected bachelors what Scotsmen wear under their kilt. On receiving a peerage, he took as his heraldic supporters two full-frontal naked athletes with a Latin motto which translated as: ‘When shaken, I rise.’ Ooooh missus!
LBC’S Nick Ferrari asks Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi what was the naughtiest thing he ever did at school. ‘I tried to jump over a hedge and there was a broken pipe and it went straight through my skin, the flesh and into my bone and my shin. I’ve still got the mark on my leg.’ Nick’s response? ‘I wish I hadn’t asked that.’