Ed Vaizey for the BM?

There was only one topic of discussion at the launch of Nadine Dorries’s novel Four Streets last night – will Maria Miller survive? The conversation was particularly pointed because Ed Vaizey and Helen Grant — Miller’s now former colleagues at the Department of Culture Media and Sport — were both present. They at least tried not to gossip.

Vaizey was invited to speak by Dorries in his ‘capacity as a Culture Minister and a friend’. He gave a comedy turn; lavishing Nadine with praise for her ‘brilliant, brilliant book which I have not yet read.’ He continued:

‘I asked Nadine for a copy and she said you can buy it off Amazon — it costs the equivalent of about 18 and a half pints of milk, not that you would know, posh boy.’

Vaizey (Old Pauline, Oxon, Cameroon) continued on this theme:

‘She takes her place in the litany of great Tory writers: Kwarsi Kwateng, Jesse Norman, Rory Stewart; though she is the only one who didn’t go to Eton.