Pick of the week’s Gossip

Margaret Thatcher was not a particularly cuddly PM, but according to newly released papers, she had two teddy bears – Humphrey and Mrs Teddy – who were so in demand, Downing Street staff had to turn down invitations on their behalf. A letter received in April 1988 read: “Four years ago you were kind enough to allow Humphrey to come to our picnic at Woburn. Would he be available now to go to the Piazza in Covent Garden to help release 10,000 balloons on behalf of the British Diabetic Association?” To this, a Downing Street aide replied that Humphrey is “already engaged for this date”. A month later, Gyles Brandreth made a similar request and was also told that the bears had “other commitments”. He says that Thatcher later told him that collecting teddies was a “very sensible hobby” for an MP, given the extracurricular interests pursued by some of them. He was all but drummed out of Britain for falsely claiming to have found a link between the MMR jab and autism, but that hasn’t stopped Andrew Wakefield being embraced in the US, where he is championed by Hollywood stars and is now believed to be dating a former supermodel. Since being struck off by the General Medical Council for misconduct, Wakefield has become a leading light of the US “anti-vaxxer” movement. Robert De Niro and Jim Carrey are among his famous supporters, and he attended an inauguration ball for Donald Trump in 2017; and having split up with his wife, he is said to be dating Elle Macpherson.