... and more bitchy barbs from Sasha the slasher
CAMERON’S BLACK DOG
LADY Swire describes how the ‘black dog’ of despair ‘descended upon David Cameron’ as his premiership hit trouble in 2012, when he and George Osborne were ‘at their lowest ebb’.
The then-prime minister could ‘see it all unravelling before his eyes’ and said it was ‘like watching a version of ( computer game) Angry Birds: all governments in Europe falling. He’s wondering whether his is next’.
Mr Cameron backed a bizarre plan to use IKEA to stop marital rows over flat-pack furniture, the book claims. The idea was part of a Number 10 ‘relationship agenda’ dreamed up by his ex-aide Steve Hilton.
The plan was to print ‘ten top tips on relationships in IKEA flat packs’ to help couples deal with the stress of putting up their wardrobes, says Lady Swire. Cameron was ‘genuinely excited’ by the proposal but an aide told him he was in danger of ‘ looking like Prince Charles talking to plants’.
WIVES’ CURTAIN SPAT
THE ex-minister’s wife risks being accused of poor taste for saying she was ‘p***ed off’ by Rose Paterson, the late wife of former cabinet member Owen Paterson, in a row over curtains.
Mrs Paterson, 63, was found dead in woodlands near her family home in June on her husband’s birthday.
Lady Swire said she was ‘fuming’ with Mrs Paterson’s ‘removal of two sets of curtains’ from the Swires’ flat at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland in 2011. As fellow Northern Ireland ministers, Sir Hugo and Mr Paterson had grace and favour apartments at the castle.
‘She decided ours would be better suited to her sitting room and promptly took them without a by your leave. We now have a frothing Colefax and Fowler floral confection completely out of keeping with our interiors. I rant at “H” (her term for Sir Hugo).’
When Sir Hugo tells her ‘calm down, dear!’ and reminds her Rose was the husband of his boss, Lady Swire spits: ‘I don’t care who she is, it’s bloody bad manners! I’m going straight to the top on this one.’ Incredibly, she complained to David Cameron about ‘the curtain spat’. She protests: ‘The truth is those Patersons really p*** me off.’
RACHEL THE ‘TORNADO’
LADY Swire complains that Boris Johnson’s sister, journalist Rachel, ‘the equivalent of a human tornado’, came over to ‘harangue’ her over government plans to shake up the forestry industry when she was dining at a ‘Notting Hill eaterie’ with David Cameron’s Number 10 aide Kate [now Baroness] Fall.
When Fall played down the issue, Miss Johnson said: ‘That’s a complete lie, Kate.’ Miss Johnson is ‘a violent dangerous rotating column of air that’ threatens to ‘lift us off our seats’, says Lady Swire in the book.
‘OILY’ HUNT
SHE mocks ‘oily’ ex-foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt for being the first to give up his official car in ‘in his usual mad PR dash’. Lady Swire says sports minister Hugh Robertson said of Mr Hunt: ‘It’s alright for him, he’s rich. He can get a taxi home.’
BRAD PITT’S EARS
WHEN Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attended a 2014 Foreign Office seminar hosted by foreign secretary William Hague, Sir Hugo was distracted by Pitt’s ears. He claims ‘one of Pitt’s ears doesn’t match the other – and he wears high heels, so there! He’s not perfect’.
‘SWIVEL HIPS’ ENVOY
CHINA’S ambassador in London is cruelly mocked as ‘Old Swivel Hips’ in the book.
Lady Swire says she and her Foreign Office minister husband gave Liu Xiaoming the nickname because of ‘his ability to turn between two opposing systems’. She says ‘Swivel Hips’ had Downing Street officials ‘screaming at the walls’ over his threat to scrap a visit by Chinese premier Li Keqiang unless he met the Queen during his 2014 trip to the UK.
When Mr Li arrived at Heathrow he demanded the red carpet, which Lady Swire says was more like a ‘ bath mat,’ was replaced by an ‘Oscar-night carpet stretching all the way up to the plane. Sir Hugo told Downing Street ‘Swivel Hips needed taking down a peg or two’.
MORE BRANDY, BISHOP?
THE ex-archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said David Cameron ‘lacked backbone’ as he drank brandy with Sir Hugo during a stay at Hillsborough Castle in Belfast in 2012.
Lady Swire says: ‘As the brandy takes effect the dog-collarless Archbishop becomes increasingly robust. Dr Sentamu asks for another brandy to take to bed and ‘rolls down the corridor glass in hand’.
‘PUFFED-UP’ FELLOWES
LADY Swire scorns ‘puffed-up’ Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes and his ‘eccentric’ wife Emma at a shooting weekend.
Lord Fellowes was ‘eloquent and intelligent but faintly ridiculous’ and ‘obsessed with social hierarchy and nostalgia’. She said his ‘turban-wearing’ wife was ‘ Julian’s add-on and sticks up her hand to seek permission from him to interrupt’.
‘SAD’ HEZZA
AT a gathering of Tory grandees at Michael Heseltine’s home in 2012, the former deputy prime minister plays a prank by claiming the Queen has asked him to replace David Cameron as PM.
Hee goes round the dinner table handing out ‘cabinet jobs’ to guests, including Lady Swire’s father, Sir John Nott, defence secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s administration. Her father said it was ‘all a bit sad’.
‘MAD’ DORRIES
NADINE Dorries, now minister for mental health, was branded ‘mad’ after she attacked ‘arrogant posh boys’ David Cameron and George Osborne in 2012.
‘The old criticism is back to haunt them,’ says Lady Swire. ‘This time it’s promoted by Mad Nad Dorries who accuses DC and GO of being “arrogant posh boys” (yes, and the news is?).’