Stanley Johnson, replete with energy and charming as ever, is touring the country looking for a safe Tory berth to ease himself into at the next election.No takers so far, I’m told, but the wily old bird has devised a brilliant ruse to boost his chances. He’s been dropping hints that his occupancy would last only until May 2016, when Boris’s second mayoral term ends. Johnson Snr would then fall gracefully on his sword, leaving the seat vacant for the blond bombshell to launch his bid for the Tory leadership and Downing Street. The so-called ‘baby lotion strategy’ (Johnson & Johnson) is proving hard for constituency chairmen to resist. One snag is that sister Rachel claims to have devised the ploy for her own benefit and is telling friends that her dear papa snaffled it from under her nose. If sibling Jo retains his Orpington seat in 2015, the Johnsons may become a larger faction in parliament than the Lib Dems.
Richard III fever strikes. Among the many descendants of the wonky-backed Plantagenet schemer is the current occupant of No. 10. Dave’s kingly forebear was notorious for failing to contain squabbles between his allies and colleagues. And we now learn from archaeologists that he was killed by a metal spike plunged into the rear of his skull while he wasn’t looking. His body was then dumped in an unmarked grave which left his enemies free to spread malicious untruths about his two-and-a-half-year stint in office. Strange that Mr Cameron offers us no lessons from this colourful tale. Talking of stricken grandees suffering from curvature of the truth, poor old Chris Huhne has been so busy writing letters of resignation that he hasn’t had time to amend his website. ‘Greetings!’ announces the homepage of Eastleigh’s own Stirling Moss. A lovely photo of Mr Huhne beams out over a list of Lib Dem policies beginning with a pledge ‘to cut crime’. It’s a promise he has heroically fulfilled. Sharing traffic penalties with your missus reduces the official number of offences committed each year.
Chris Skidmore, MP for Kingswood, has tabled an early day motion calling for Richard III to be granted a state funeral. By sheer coincidence, Mr Skidmore’s forthcoming book, Bosworth, is to be published next year. I’m not suggesting that an early day motion is some form of ‘free advertising’. Far from it. Each one costs the taxpayer about 300 smackers. Still, it’s cheaper than placing an advert in the Bookseller.
Which world leader has set himself the silliest ambition in retirement? President Ahmadinejad put in a serious claim when he announced that he plans to blast off into orbit after leaving office and to become ‘a martyr for science’. But even that can’t beat our former prime minister, Tony Blair, who wanted to bring peace to the Middle East.
In his boundless optimism, Dave has decided that what the Taleban really need is a neutral space where they can chat about peace, love and understanding. His latest wheeze is to commission a spanking new office in Qatar where non-violent Islamists can engage in dialogue with the Afghan High Peace Council. A friend in the Foreign Office tells me, ‘We might as well open a cocktail bar for recovering dipsos.’
France’s newest import, David Beckham, announces that he’ll give away his entire footballing income to ‘a children’s charity’. Staff at our Paris embassy are calling this ‘a rather unflattering description of François Hollande’s government’.
Andrea Riseborough, who played Margaret Thatcher in the TV film The Long Walk To Finchley, has spread the word that her subject had ‘psychopathic tendencies’. Clearly Ms Riseborough is more than just an excellent actress. She’s also a top-class political operator. Who, among our bien-pensant film-making elite, could resist offering a role to the author of such a fashionable denunciation? Ms Riseborough refines her semantics by adding, ‘the term implies a tendency to not feel as much guilt about one’s actions as one ought to’. Actions like calling a widowed grandmother a psychopath, perhaps.
Comments