Pick of the week’s Gossip

Laura Pidcock was not the only Labour MP to boast last week of a “visceral” dislike of the Tories (see opposite). In an interview with the BBC, the party’s former deputy leader Harriet Harman (pictured) described how she once hid in a room in the Palace of Westminster to shield her sixweek-old baby from the gaze of Margaret Thatcher, who was approaching down a corridor. “I had this feeling that I didn’t want her eyes to fall on my perfect baby – that it would be horrific. And I think if I hadn’t been able to find that room

I would have literally drawn the cover over the baby’s face for her eyes not to fall on it.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a gushing letter on his social media site this week to mark the birth of his second daughter, August, with wife Priscilla Chan. In their open letter to welcome their first daughter, Max, the couple had reflected on the problems facing younger generations. But in their latest missive, they talk of the importance of play and advise August not to spend her childhood worrying too much about the future, saying: “You’ve got us for

that.” The letter continues: “You will be busy when you’re older, so I hope you take time to smell all the flowers and put all the leaves you want in your bucket now.”

The poet Simon Armitage enjoyed no such parental fawning during a recent recital. He told The Oldie that before uttering some rather coarse terms, he had said with a smirk: “I’d like to just warn my mum and dad, who are in the audience, that my next poem features some words you’ve most likely never heard before.” His father stood up and replied: “Would those words be ‘thank you’, by any chance?”