Pick of the week’s Gossip

The usually mild-mannered Keir Starmer shocked some on the Right last week, when he cracked a rare joke at Boris Johnson’s expense, during his conference speech. The Labour leader talked up his workingclass upbringing and contrasted himself to the Prime Minister – but said the pair did have one thing in common. “My dad was a toolmaker...” he said. “Although in a way, so was Boris Johnson’s.” The Colombian pop star Shakira has been mugged – by wild boars. She was walking with her eight-year-old son in a park in Barcelona, when two of the animals – whose numbers have boomed in the city – stole her bag and took it into nearby woods. Holding up the torn bag, she said on social media: “Look at how two wild boars which attacked me in the park have left my bag. They’ve destroyed everything.” Turning to her son for vindication, she said: “Milan, tell the truth. Say how your mummy stood up to the wild boar.”

In a new documentary about Jackie Collins, her sister Joan expresses her belief that the author, who died in 2015, has been reincarnated as a fruit fly. “Apparently, it was its impressive tenacity that was the giveaway,” reports The Observer. The insect doggedly followed Joan all the way from the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel to the Côte d’Azur.

Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor, 72, is infuriated by the lack of respect shown to his craft. “Even after all this time, some people still think I’m ‘just’ a drummer,” he says. “They’re the engine that drives the music. Without us, you’ve just got a couple of people in tight trousers jumping about at the front of the stage.”