‘Great meeting Rob Brydon at the Chelsea Flower Show today,’ tweeted veteran broadcaster Tony Blackburn earlier. ‘What a very funny and nice man’ he added with an accompanying picture of his new chum. Except the picture was of the ‘funny and nice’, though significantly blonder, taller and less Welsh Ben Fogle. ‘That is not Rob Brydon,’ he mused later. Yes Tony, we know. Is the heat getting to the old boy?
I would rather live next door to a German than a Romanian. I thought I’d just make that clear. I don’t mean I’d rather live next door to SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich than the humorously surreal dramatist Eugène Ionesco. I mean, in general, on average, given what I know about the people from both countries who have come here to live. Not all of them, obviously. Just as a generality, if you were to offer me the choice, without telling me any more about the respective merits of the people concerned, just here’s your choice, Rod – Germans or Romanians. I may be wrong, but I suspect most people in this country, if offered the same choice,
Nigel Farage is in the papers again today – unbelievably! – this time with a full-page advert in the Telegraph responding to his remarks about Romanians on LBC radio. Such was the universal media condemnation over his interview with James O’Brien that on Saturday even the Sun had an editorial on anti-Romanian racism. You couldn’t make it up. Farage was stereotyping, and his tone of ‘you know what the difference is’ hit the wrong note, which lost him the argument over a fairly reasonable point; that is, the typical profile of a German migrant is very different to that of a Romanian migrant. For example, recent figures released showed that
I hope you enjoyed the new post-Paxman Newsnight last night, if you still watch the programme. It was bad on a whole new level of badness (watch it here). Presented by an Afghan-Australian woman called Yalda Hakim, of whom I had never heard. Yalda was hampered in her presentational debut by being unable to string a sentence together; nor did she have the knowledge or acuity to ask interesting questions of her guests. On one cringing occasion, the reporter William Dalrymple asked questions on her behalf (of a supporter of the triumphant Indian politician Narendra Modi, who, of course, Newsnight REALLY loathes), because she was unable to. On another occasion, during
Westbourne’s Change Opinion Awards last night might have got rather feisty. The Sun beat feminist campaigners Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado Perez to the top prize for its ‘Check ‘Em Tuesday’ breast cancer campaign, and the Anti-Page 3 brigade was in attendance. The scene was set for a showdown when the paper’s editor went to collect the award. But all turned out well. The audience was moved by the words of a representative of CoppaFeel! (the charity which ran the campaign in conjunction with The Sun) who told the crowd that she had spoken recently to recovering breast cancer patients who had got checked in time because of the campaign.
Anyone who hasn’t seen Hamas TV is missing a treat. Of course the low production values are part of the fun. But for the Palestinian audiences, most entertaining of all seems to be the sight of watching Palestinian children being taught to murder every Jew. Often by an adult dressed up as a giant bumble bee. Because one of the most popular characters in the death-fest that is ‘Al-Aqsa TV’ is indeed ‘Nahul’, the giant cuddly bee. Anybody who still thinks that Hamas is a legitimate ‘resistance’ organisation, or that the recent Hamas-Fatah unity deal could in any way help bring about a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian border dispute,
Mr S unleashed his inner-feminist at the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Awards last night. Veuve Clicquot president Jean-Marc Lacave was clearly feeling equally empowered by the opposite sex, telling Mr S ‘in sixty years my dream is to have a businessman awards because the world will be run by women.’ Mr S, a convinced feminist, concurs entirely. The awards, at Claridge’s, were graced by today’s – and tomorrow’s – female entrepreneurs. Easyjet CEO Carolyn McCall, designer Lulu Guinness OBE, Martha-Lane Fox CBE (co-founder of lastminute.com and founder of JoJo Maman Bébé), and previous winner Laura Tenison MBE were all in attendance. Jenny Dawson, founder of Rubies in the
Q. On arrival at a top level dinner, I was surprised to see at the table a woman who, I have reason to suspect, sells gossip as a sideline. However, clearly no one else suspected her and, assuming it was Chatham House rules, everyone was talking freely. When one man began to regale the table with an anecdote which was bound to culminate in a dynamite piece of gossip, I was paralysed with horror but I couldn’t think how to stop him before it was too late. The consequence was that the item appeared in the press a couple of days later, causing all manner of probable future security problems
This has been a bad month for those who want to shut down free speech in Britain. First there was the wholesale failure of Fiyaz Mughal (whose ‘work’ I have written about before). Readers will recall that Mr Mughal – whose website, Tell Mama, claims to record and counter ‘Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred’ – used the immediate aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby to claim hysterically that, ‘The scale of the backlash is astounding… there has been a massive spike in anti-Muslim prejudice’. He also used the opportunity to attack the UK government’s counter-terrorism policy. All this before Drummer Rigby – who some people may remember was killed
The new Shangri-La hotel opened its doors to Mr S last night. Located on floor 35 of The Shard, the luxurious establishment was only, in fact, semi-open, since three ‘signature suites’ and an infinity pool are yet to be unveiled. The exhibited areas were abundant in opulence and splendour. The great and the good of luxury journalism were out in force. William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose Kitchen, Mark Palmer, travel editor of The Daily Mail and The Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman were all present to admire interior designer William Leung’s latest venture. All other glamorous guests appeared to have got lost in the lift on the way up. Entertainment included a
After 25 years in the hot seat, Jeremy Paxman is finally stepping down from Newsnight. Following months years of will-he-won’t-he speculation, Newsnight’s star draw has finally had enough. According to the BBC press release: ‘He informed Tony Hall, the Director General, and James Harding, the Director of News and Current Affairs, of his decision last summer, but with the appointment of a new editor and following a difficult period for Newsnight, Jeremy generously agreed to stay to help the new team bed down.’ As Mr Steerpike reported last year, Paxo has not been happy with the BBC — in particular with Ian Katz’s tenure as editor of Newsnight — for some time. The BBC
The latest series of Andrew Rawnsley’s ‘Leader Conference’ on Radio 4 starts tonight…keenly awaited obviously. But having been on the programme a couple of times – though not, funnily, since I did a piece for this magazine about the difficulty a woman has in getting her oar in across the masculine timbre of Danny Finkelstein et al – perhaps I should disabuse you that this admirable series actually replicates what happens in a leader conference. It’s very good, as everything my old friend Andrew does, but just not quite the same as the thing itself. This, I may say, is something of a specialist subject of mine, on account of
There’s been a lot of talk on this website recently about ‘revenge porn’. First, Freddy revealed his tips on how to avoid embarrassing videos and pictures of yourself being posted online (Answer: don’t let anyone take them). Then Lara asked why a Ukip-supporting victim of revenge porn wasn’t getting any support from feminist campaigners. And now Ed West has come up with his solution for slut-shaming: cad-shaming. It’s this last bit that I’m not so sure about, though. How come men get the name ‘cad’, while women get called ‘sluts’? When it comes to venomous insults, the two words are hardly on the same level. For example, there are certain words
I’m kicking myself because back in 2011 or 2012 Paddy Power gave me odds of 66/1 on Ukip topping the 2014 poll, which I chickened out of taking. It was perfectly likely that Ukip would win because their views on a range of subjects are close to the median British average, while the three main parties (or LIBLABCON as I call them when posting on messageboards under the name ‘Sword of Odin’) are often in a world of their own. But I also thought that the party brand could be made toxic by media exposure of its most extreme members, and great denunciations from the commentariat. As it is Ukip’s
Utter the word ‘retirement’ in 4 Millbank at your peril. The bods at Sky News are waiting for the arrival of their new political editor, Faisal Islam, who is working out his notice period at Channel 4. Mr S hears that Adam Boulton, the outgoing political editor, is snapping at anyone in the office who says that he is retiring. Staff members are curtly reminded to say that Boulton is being ‘promoted to Editor-at-Large’, and he’s certainly not planning to go anywhere yet. ‘It’s the easiest way to wind him up,’ chortles my camera-wielding mole.
Russell Brand won’t let go of his row with the BBC. He popped up as the mystery guest at Letters Live (a spin off from the wonderful Twitter account @LettersOfNote, where assorted luvvies read great letters from the past). Inevitably, Brand screwed up his reading. He tried to rescue the situation by quipping: ‘Is this like when I broke the BBC?’ This was met by assorted groans and the odd clap. Brand’s references to his suspension and departure from the BBC over the ‘Sachs-gate’ affair in 2008 are getting very tiresome indeed. Mr S was under the impression that Brand was busy plotting a revolution.
Fun times for our country cousins over at Country Life: they have compiled a list, drawn up with the help of Jeremy Paxman and Jilly Cooper, of dos-and-don’ts to guide the modern gentleman. Mr S has chosen not to comment on their unprovoked attack on coloured trousers, or the usual jazz about pre-tied bowties and tardiness, because he is rather puzzled by the emphatic statement that a true gentleman always ‘makes love on his elbows’. The mental image is beyond description. Needless to say, this particular tip does not seem to have made the cut for Debrett’s – or, to take in another point of view, Playboy. Mr S can
Is Mr Steerpike alone in thinking that Jeremy Paxman can’t be bothered anymore? First there was his wet rag interview with the ‘Chrystal Methodist’ Paul Flowers, the former Co-op chairman. Now he’s turned his (still potent) guns on the BBC itself. In an interview with the Guardian, the well-remunerated Newsnight presenter has slammed Aunty’s ‘closed corporate culture’: ‘It is smug. I love the BBC in many ways, but at the same time it has made me loathe aspects of it, and that’s a very odd state of affairs. When I see people being given £1m merely for walking out of the door, when I see £100m being blown on that
Nigel Farage is feeling the heat after saying that the electricity bill for his 620 square foot office is over £3,000. According to Consumer Futures, the average household dual-fuel energy bill is £1,200 and that is for an average 1,042 square feet home, so one can see why he’s under pressure. Farage went on to say that he runs lots of ‘machines’ in his tiny office. Henry de Zoete, the bright spark former special adviser to Michael Gove turned co-founder of energy campaigning group The Big Deal, points out an open goal to Mr S: ‘Like millions of Britons, Nigel Farage is being ripped off by the Big Six energy
This morning’s edition of The Times reported (£) that Nigel Farage could face a probe into claims, apparently lodged by a former UKIP official, that nearly £60,000 of ‘missing’ European Union funds have been paid into his personal bank account. Mr Farage denies the allegations in strong terms and has invited EU officials to examine his expenses. This is not the first time that UKIP has faced allegations about fiddled expenses. Yet none of the mud has stuck. There are two reasons for this: nothing has been proved and few people appear to understand how the European parliamentary expenses system works (there is, for example, a less than clear distinction between