Ephraim Hardcastle
FEVERISHLY drumming up support as a Change UK MEP candidate, Rachel Johnson stands accused of hijacking her husband’s political ambitions. Ivo Dawnay, invited by the party to stand in the euro election, wails: ‘My mistake was letting Mrs D know I was having a go. She, of course, instantly applied herself.’ He added: ‘The fact that I know something about Brussels counts for two out of ten, whereas blonde notoriety as the second evictee from Celebrity Big Brother is a far better qualification.’ Watch out Ivo or you’ll be evicted from the house!
MARGARET Thatcher’s former minister Sir John Nott complains, in a BBC documentary, about the profusion of Old Etonians in her first Cabinet, saying: ‘I had to suffer the Etonians. They had an attitude of supercilious disdain for Margaret. I have a low opinion of the place.’ Then why, Notty, did you send your two sons there?
HAS Jeff Koons’ stainless steel rabbit – sold last week in New York for £72million – really surpassed the previous world record of most expensive work by a living artist? It had been held by David Hockney, pictured, whose Portrait Of An Artist fetched £71.3million last year. The New York Times blames increased sales fees, stating: ‘The difference was simply a matter of auction house profit-seeking.’ So does Hockney retain the world record for Yorkshire?
HAVING savaged Jacob Rees-Mogg’s new book, A.N. Wilson rubbed salt into Moggy’s wounds on Radio 4 by telling him: ‘When Robert Peel died, the poor of London wept in the streets because their bread was cheaper. I don’t think that’s going to happen when any of you lot, who sound more like the conspirators in Julius Caesar, drop dead.’
MEANWHILE, Moggy’s description during PMQs yesterday of hapless Theresa May’s Brexit plan as ‘folderol’ impresses squeaker Bercow, who delights in explaining the 19th century insult as ‘a showy and useless item’. It takes one...
THE PM is determined to cling on in No 10 until next Thursday. Why? She’ll have beaten fellow lacklustre PM Gordon Brown’s twoyear and 319-day tenure. And if she can postpone the packing until June 27 she will overtake Neville Chamberlain, a premier she is often cruelly compared to.
WHEN Donald Trump phoned to pardon Lord Black over his fraud conviction, he cleverly asked the President: ‘Do you authorise me to say your motivation is that it was an unjust verdict?’ The answer was ‘yes’, but Conrad didn’t tell Trump he initially thought the call was a prank.
FORMER Labour MEP and actor Lord Cashman announces: ‘I think I’ve just resigned from the Labour Party by declaring that I will support the Liberal Democrats in the European elections.’ Almost as traumatic, surely, as his stint on EastEnders when his character Colin Russell participated in the first gay kiss on British television.