The first rule of the summer party is do not hold your summer party on the same night as The Spectator. It’s social fight club. You can only lose.
This is a rule, however, that our Prime Minister, among others on ‘the left’, ignored to offer competing attractions. Zarah Sultana MP went to the most extreme lengths. She chose the same evening (3 July) to launch a new political party with Jeremy Corbyn, by posting something on X at 8.11 p.m. before her party even had a name, or indeed, Jeremy Corbyn. It was Jezbollah minus Magic Grandpa. Total success, as my father says whenever something goes badly wrong.
The band Centrist Dad had a gig at The Water Rats in King’s Cross. This is an inside-the-Beltway boys’ band with Robert Peston and Ed Balls. As Balls says, ‘It’s not quite Glastonbury’ (Peston is on vocals). One person with divided loyalties was George Osborne, who hosts a podcast with Balls. He solved this dilemma by going to The Spec’s party in an open white shirt and rocking out both.
Even ‘Two Tears’ Keir was entertaining that night after his week from hell: watering his restive troops in the No. 10 rose garden, just a short stroll from Michael Gove’s gathering of the clans in 22 Old Queen Street, which was, of course, my destination.
The first person I saw on arrival was Sarah Pochin, Reform’s newest MP. It was 6.40 p.m. Nick Ferrari, the LBC breakfast champ, was also arriving. ‘You were right to come early,’ I said to Sarah P. ‘I always do,’ fnarred Ferrari.
We processed down into the large shaded garden. Champagne bars serving ice-cold Pol Roger and, for the first time ever, a caviar and blini bar awaited our pleasure. As I was downing my first flute, the television legend Michael Cockerell manifested at my elbow. I should say here that from his loins have sprung a fleet of six talented and gazelle-like daughters (the writer Rachel is my goddaughter).
‘I heard you mentioned me at your event,’ Cockerell opened with. The ‘event’ he referred to was the ‘Living with a Politician’ evening with the bestselling author and columnist Sarah Vine and Lord Swire. It was smoothly chaired by Lord Gove of this parish. I had indeed referenced Cockerell,
between Sir Hugo’s amusingly detailed ‘manecdotes’ about his political career.
Reform’s top brass, all four of them, were holding court in a roped-off winners’ enclosure
‘I heard it was a disaster,’ Cockerell continued cheerfully as the party began to roar. As I asked from whom, the image of the biographer Tom Bower popped up in my mind and superimposed itself on the festive glade, which by now was buzzing bee-loud with speculation about why Rachel Reeves had been crying at PMQs. ‘Tom Bower,’ Cockerell confirmed. All I can say is I’d expect nothing less from the master of the hatchet job. I had worried that the event was not quite as advertised. The only person who’d been ‘living with a politician’ – if you stop to think about it for a second – was Mrs Gove. I’d felt like a terrible imposter, so had attempted to take over and get Michael (Gove) to talk about his feelings, in vain.
After my conversation with Cockerell, I slunk off to the caviar bar and encouraged waiters to horn-spoon the brownish eggs on to the back of my hand to lick off, as a form of self-soothing, while continuing to gulp down the Pol Roger and surveying the scene.
Labour had been summoned to Downing Street, yes, but where was the so-called opposition? The closest thing I could see to a top Tory – until Kemi arrived looking a million dollars – was Mrs Jenrick. Reform’s top brass, all four of them, were holding court in a roped-off winners’ enclosure and making the most of the hospitality.
As two small-screen titans, Trevor Phillips of Sky and the YouTuber Piers Morgan, argued about Rachel Reeves’s crying jag and then beaming public appearance at a hospital hours later, with open-casket maquillage, I cadged a ciggie from a Viscount with a ruddy Thomas Hardy glow. He gave me six. I returned five, and proceeded over to Lynn ‘Demon’ Barber as I’d had the nod to sit with her. Fleet Street’s greatest interviewer is also its last great smoker and she’s not that steady on her pins.
Before I rush off to another ‘event’, like any Sloane guest, I must pen my thank yous to Lance Forman, the salmon king, for the excellent bitings, Pol Roger, Allwyn, the sponsors, and the Tipplemill distillery for our liquid party bags.
Unlike some we could mention after a year of them not meeting manifesto challenges, The Spectator party always promises a rose garden and delivers, time after time.
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