PETERBOROUGH
Cameron drinks up
What is it with politicians and food? Former Conservative spinner Giles Kenningham told the Hacks & Flaks podcast: “We had a ban on David Cameron eating in public [with his hands],” after Ed Miliband was snapped biting into a bacon sandwich in 2015. This led to a “farcical, Thick of It moment during the 2015 election where he was given a hot dog and ate it with a knife and fork”.
Cameron’s team always brought a spare suit in case he was egged. The only drink the former PM was allowed to get near in public was a pint of beer, above. Down in one, Dave!
Liverpool wins again
Forget Eton and Harrow. The school really punching above its weight in politics nowadays is 182-year-old Liverpool College. At the end of Liz Truss’s administration last year there were more “Old Lerpoolians” in the Cabinet (Sir Jake Berry and Kit Malthouse) than Old Etonians (Jacob Rees-mogg).
Now I hear of another Westminsterlink: Rishi Sunak’s father Yashvir Sunak is an old boy. Young Yashvir studied there in the late 1960s. He had a starring role in the school’s annual play The Strong Are Lonely by Fritz Hochwälder.
Ian Lightbody, who knew Yashvir and became the school’s deputy head, tells me: “Northerners don’t need to go South for a good education.”
Tony’s still waiting
What does Tony Blackburn, right, have to do to be honoured by the King? The Radio 1 legend was overlooked once more this year. It was all too much for his manager Nick Canham, who took to social media after the New Year Honours List to say: “Some truly great people received recognition this year but there are very, very few people who have contributed more to broadcasting and entertainment than Tony.”
Blackburn was magnanimous, saying: “Having you as my manager is enough for me.” Still there was good news elsewhere in the Blackburn household. His actress daughter Victoria is now engaged to her fiancé Chris.
Labour’s shaky control
Peter Mandelson, the former Labour strategist, thinks Sir Keir Starmer has played a masterstroke by taking over the Brexiteer slogan, “Take Back Control”, calling it “very clever communication”. Not everyone agrees. Another Labour peer points out that former Labour MP Siôn Simon in 2017 ran to be West Midlands mayor on the slogan: “Taking back control, putting the West Midlands first”.
That was as far as it went though. Simon lost to the Conservative candidate Andy Street, who is still there.
Murray and the luvvies
Not everyone loves each other in showbusiness, despite the air kissing, according to comedian Al Murray, best known for his “Pub Landlord” character. “What people like to tell themselves about showbusiness is that we all just get along, we’re all pals, it’s all a big funhouse. And obviously it isn’t,” he tells the White Wine Question Time podcast. “One of my daughters is at drama school and there’s a bit of me that thinks, ‘Maybe reconsider and become an accountant’. “The completely reductive version of that would be like, ‘Have you thought of being an undertaker? People always need undertakers’.”
God’s work
The Catholic Herald is riding high after it was shortlisted for Consumer Publication of the Year at the 2022 PPA Independent Publisher Awards.
Now it is expanding to find a new audience in the US, described as the “political and moral battleground of the
Catholic church” by William Cash, its editor-in-chief, above.
The 134-year-old magazine has just won a big investment from US backers. One financier told Cash: “We really like the Catholic Herald because you are doing God’s work.”
Which is one way to describe it.
Cruise annoys the nuns
Hollywood star Tom Cruise proved to be a noisy neighbour when he was filming one of the Mission Impossible films next to the nuns in a new BBC series of Call The Midwife.
“His helicopter would land in the field nearby and interrupt us,” Jenny Agutter, who plays Sister Julienne, says.
“I did quite like the idea of rushing along in my habit and saying ‘Look can you just stop this Tom? This is ridiculous’.”
It seems that Agutter never got the chance. More’s the pity.