Dave’s a listener. He listens to women in particular. That’s the sub-text of his recent disclosure that Sam keeps urging him to promote more women to the Cabinet. Yet Dave’s top table boasts just four leading ladies. And at his last reshuffle he replaced ousted females with men. ‘He’s listening all right,’ says a junior minister, ‘with both fingers stuffed in his ear-holes while humming and doing the complete opposite.’ A senior Tory puts it more succinctly. ‘Like the Prime Minister, I favour Cabinet equality,’ he says, ‘but we’re still about half a dozen birds short of a lap-dancing club.’
Vicars of Christ! Since Benedict XVI decided to hand back the keys to the Popemobile, right-wing Catholic hacks have been reminding everyone that the bishops of England and Wales will have no influence over the choice of his successor. Archbishop Vincent Nichols still hasn’t been made a cardinal and will play no part in the conclave. Our only red-hat, Cormac Murphy O’Connor, is disqualified on the grounds of age. However, at the last conclave following J-P II’s death in 2005, Cardinal Cormac took the lead in English-language talks within the College of Cardinals. And he is understood to have opposed the eventual winner, Ratzo himself. Cormac, still an active and canny operator at 81, is bound to wield considerable influence even though he has no vote in the election. Vatican experts are already dubbing 2013 ‘the year of Cormac’s revenge’.
A pal who cleans the Tupperware at Buckingham Palace tells me that the Duke of Edinburgh was greatly tickled by the Pope’s resignation barely eight years into the job, observing that if ‘Lilibet’ had done a Ratzo, he could have given up public life in 1960. The rules of succession, according to irreverent courtiers, account for the Queen’s amazing stamina and her refusal to abdicate. After all, they point out, the pontiff’s replacement will be chosen from a vast talent-pool of world-class spiritual leaders. Her Majesty’s, on the other hand …
‘I try to live without stuff,’ confesses Terence Stamp, now aged 74, and still making movies all over the world. ‘I try to make my heart my house.’ Zuma in Knightsbridge is a favourite lunching spot. As is Wiltons on Jermyn Street. His connoisseurship of hotels is unrivalled. ‘In Hollywood it’s Chateau Marmont. In Vancouver it’s the Fairmont. In India it’s the old section of the Taj Mahal hotel.’ He explains, ‘I just want my life to be simple.’ Yes, Terry, don’t we all?
MPs are clamouring for processed horsemeat to be served in the Palace of Westminster. It’s not the flesh they crave, but the contaminant ‘bute’, which has been denounced as dangerous to human health. ‘Dangerous?’ says one Tory shiresman. ‘It’s a bloody wonder-drug. Best hangover cure I’ve ever tried.’
Hugh Grant has been working on a sequel to the child he fathered in 2011 with Chinese beauty Tinglan Hong. The couple’s new baby, Felix Chang, was delivered in December. ‘Shock and disbelief as Hugh Grant sleeps with same woman twice,’ joked cynical hacks when the happy news broke. Mr Steerpike, who sometimes deplores his colleagues’ sense of humour, offers his sincere congratulations to the fecund heart-throb and reminds fellow scribblers that Mr Grant has added this modest plea. ‘Hoping my family will be left in peace.’
Ed Miliband, meeting Denmark’s Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, gobbled up his Danish pastry double-quick so that he could immortalise their interview on Twitter. ‘Discussed growth, living standards and how to make Europe work for its people,’ he told his followers. The technical term ‘people’ here refers to beneficiaries of the gargantuan EU bureaucracy, such as Glenys and Neil Kinnock who, by an apt coincidence, are the parents-in-law of Ms Thorning-Schmidt. Mr Miliband then sprinted off to a seminar on innovation. This prompted another newsflash. ‘Hearing about Laila Ohlgren who invented the call button on mobile phones.’ Important stuff, Ed. Don’t forget to meet the pioneer who added the heating element to the toaster. And the genius who made soup bowls concave. And the guy who decided to stand under a tree while it was raining.
Eastleigh hopeful John O’Farrell accuses Tory campaigners of sifting his autobiography for material to use against him. But not Grant Shapps, the Tory chairman. He’s a big fan of Mr O’Farrell’s 1998 memoir, Things Can Only Get Better: 18 Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter. Shapps says the book offers a devastating portrait of long-term opposition and its corrosive effect on the political soul. Perhaps he’ll get a special run printed for outgoing Tories in 2015.
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