Pick of the week’s Gossip

The diaries of the Tory MP and former minister Sir Alan Duncan have been serialised in the Daily Mail, and they are not very flattering to his colleagues. He describes the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson as a “venomous little shit” – a former “fireplace salesman” who is “ludicrously unqualified” for ministerial office. Duncan calls Priti Patel a “deceitful, brassy monster” who “should be in the Tower of London”. Theresa May, he says, is “dumbstruck, leaden”, with a “charisma bypass” – and the Tory MP Steve Baker is “a little tick, so simplistic he might as well not have a brain”.

The actor Jason Watkins says that when he got the role of Harold Wilson in The Crown, he was “jumping up and down in my dressing room”. “At least no animals were harmed this time,” said The Times. When Watkins was accepted into Rada as a young man, he embarked on a similar celebration – and landed, fatally, on the family cat.

In a Radio 4 programme about the role of the PM, Tony Blair confessed that he didn’t much enjoy his time in No. 10: the responsibility was “immense”, yet when he became PM he had no experience of government at all. He said it was as if Man United had found “its most enthusiastic and persuasive fan”, and “put him in charge of the team”. David Cameron, at least, found solace in the kitchen. “Just a few moments of peace at lunchtime and making a cheese sandwich and eating it alone,” he said. “These were really valuable moments.”