The PM was keeping his enemies close at a Tory fundraiser last week at Old Billingsgate Market. Dave exchanged uneasy smiles with his deadliest rival, Boris, who was seated on the same table as him. And something else seemed slightly fishy at the former herring exchange. Guests noticed that there were rather fewer tables than there have been in years past. Even a speech from the Prime Minister couldn’t lift the atmosphere. One attendee remarked afterwards, ‘It was a typical Cameron speech, thoroughly unmemorable.’
Dear old Darwin is to be culled from the new version of the ten-pound note. The outgoing Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, has hinted that Jane Austen is hot favourite to replace the naturalist. But the multi-Oscar-nominated queen of chicklit faces stiff competition from John Milton, who has numerous claims in his favour. For starters, he was severely disabled, which is enormously fashionable nowadays. He held high public office for many years without ever being accused of adultery, house-flipping or grooming lobbyists to give convincing answers to parliamentary select committees. And, as every literary pedant knows, ten pounds is the precise sum he received in royalties for Paradise Lost during his lifetime.
Hats off to the Guardian for bringing a ray of sunshine into our lives. The paper plans to publish an archive of Wasteland Britain. ‘Are there any abandoned estates, factories, shopping centres or other modern ruins near you?’ it pleads. ‘Share your photos.’ Hacks at the struggling paper have bombarded the link with images of their London headquarters.
Was Anna Chancellor bullied at drama school? ‘It was unfashionable to be posh in the 1980s,’ she tells me. ‘They’d say I was hopeless, and daffy, and born with a silver spoon in my mouth. We had a lesson about income tax and I sat in the back thinking, “I’m never going to pay tax.” ’ She was unemployed for years until the Blackadder producer John Lloyd cast her in a Ferrero Rocher commercial. Now she’s starring in the West End opposite Toby Stephens in Private Lives, Noel Coward’s classic comedy about randy upper-class divorcees. And her tax bill is reassuringly enormous.
Lovely Kate was banned from a society wedding in Northumberland last weekend in case her baby sprang forth at the wrong moment. Chums of the expectant couple are unsure which would have been the more embarrassing circumstance for a royal nativity: the North or the NHS. I detect an opportunity here. How better to democratise the royals than to have the future monarch born amid the crisp bags, fag butts and superbugs of an NHS corridor? Trolley for Kate, please.
A long week looms at Defra. Highly paid civil servants are locked in top-level negotiations over possible adjustments to Britain’s ‘bathing season’, which currently runs between 15 May and 30 September. Well, thank God for central government. Imagine trying to decide for ourselves when to go for a paddle.
Dave’s chronic amnesia was a big talking point at the Countryside Alliance’s fundraiser last week. In opposition, Dave made all the right noises about repealing the 2004 Hunting Act but he promptly mislaid his promises as soon as he reached No. 10. A bit like that referendum. And most Alliance supporters still regard Brussels as their implacable foe. Lord Mancroft warned younger members that Eurocrats have them in their cross-hairs. ‘I don’t know how many of you shoot old English guns but you won’t be able to if the EU bans lead shot.’ The evening’s most popular hate-figure, as ever, was Tony Blair. ‘Kick Blair right where it hurts,’ cried Lord Dalmeny as he opened the fundraising auction, ‘Bid high, and hit him in the goolies.’
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