No. 10’s Dilyn bow wows the Garrick crowd
HOW long before Dilyn the dog is standing in for Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions? I ask because the Jack Russellcross adopted by the PM and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds is back in the spotlight.
After a high-profile role on the stump during the election campaign, Dilyn made a surprise appearance at The Spectator political awards dinner last week.
In a short film shot at No. 10, Dilyn was seen barking at the camera — a thank-you message, according to the subtitles — on behalf of his master who had won the Parliamentarian Of The Year award.
Indeed, it was a busy week for
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In a rambling speech at a charity event last week, former Speaker John Bercow insisted he had been neutral over Brexit. ‘I didn’t force the issue one way or the other.’ Millions might beg to differ.
TORY grandee Sir Nicholas Soames, who stood down as an MP at the General Election, says politics has come full circle during his career. ‘I came into the House of Commons in 1983 when the Labour Party was unelectable. I left the Commons 36 years later with a completely unelectable Labour Party.’ Plus ça change. rescue dog Dilyn. He was also a guest of honour at a 60th birthday party for John Whittingdale, the Tory MP and leading figure in Vote Leave, at the illustrious Garrick Club.
The club, founded in 1831 by a group of literary gentlemen as a place where ‘ actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms’, does not allow women members let alone pet dogs, and staff were rather thrown into a spin by the canine cutie’s presence.
‘ We’ve had PMs and royalty, but never a dog before,’ my mole in clubland told me.
Dilyn’s presence was non-negotiable, according to a Downing Street insider. ‘Boris and Carrie are devoted to Dilyn. John Whittingdale introduced Boris to Carrie. So Dilyn had to be at the party.’
CAROLINE VOADEN, the Lib Dem group leader in the European Parliament, was outraged when she was told at a private meeting for the 73 departing British MEPs that there was to be no payoff or pension for those who were elected last spring.
As she whinged on, she was heckled by one Brexit Party MEP, who told her: ‘Get a proper job.’
Quite. What proper job pays a pension after only 250 days?
... MEANWHILE, Labour MEP Seb Dance says Brexit Day on January 31 will be ‘the saddest day in my political career’.
It prompted a cutting response from Tory Brexiteer MP Andrea Jenkyns: ‘Or is this the saddest moment in your life because you’ve lost your job on the EU gravy train?’