Donald Trump Jnr's big catch

Telegraph

11-07-2025

Former Conservative Cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, who died this week aged 94, was a keen shot who published The Game Cook in 2009 including his favourite game recipes for pheasant, partridge, duck, grouse, wood pigeon, woodcock, deer and rabbit. 'I don't shoot for the sake of it. That's pointless. I shoot to cook and eat, or to take it to the local butchers,' he once said. His favourite recipe was partridge with pears and cheese. 'My mother said that if you never learn to cook, you never learn to eat. She taught me to skin rabbits. To this day I can think of few things better than shooting a bird, plucking it, cooking it and then eating it,' he added.
Havers has a smashing time
Nigel Havers has been reflecting on a spell working in Los Angeles in recent years. 'I went there for nine months. I was paying more rent than I was being paid for the part,' he said. 'Everything in the house I rented was controlled by an iPad, and one day, the barrier outside the house wouldn't go up. So I had to drive through it. I smashed the car's front headlight and broke the barrier.'
Farage snubbed
My GB News colleague Nigel Farage might be tipped by bookies to be our next prime minister but he was not offered an invitation to meet with the French president Emmanuel Macron along with Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey this week. Will he suffer the same treatment when Donald Trump visits in September? 'I will just meet him in private,' he tells friends, adding he has been putting up with this treatment for years.
The establishment might one day rue its treatment of Farage.
BBC horse trials
Who is better, a BBC director general or a horse? Tim Davie – who has run the corporation since 2020 – tried to find out when he took part in the annual Man versus Horse Marathon with a herd of 75 horses in rural Wales last month. The gruelling contest on June 14 took place over 21 miles of tricky Welsh terrain, with runners racing fellow humans and equines too. Davie came a very healthy ninth place in the male over-50s category. Davie said that he takes part in the race every year, but conditions made this year's run a 'gnarly' one. The BBC director-general insisted he enjoyed the experience, despite falling over twice. It was a walk in the park compared with the fallout from Bob Vylan's performance at Glastonbury two weeks later.
Leigh's service
Former Tory leader William Hague's speech at a reception on Wednesday to mark Howard Leigh's 25 years as Conservative treasurer was interrupted by a phone call from party leader Kemi Badenoch to thank Leigh for his service to nine Tory leaders. 'Hello, I am just giving a speech. I am delighted to hear from you,' Hague told Badenoch, who was dialling in from her daughter's birthday party. 'This is William. I am instantly recognisable. I once entered a competition to impersonate me and I came third.' Leigh – who is estimated to have helped raise £750 million for the party – is a keen long-distance runner, said Hague: 'Another activity in which you have to get up every day, and do the same thing. Even though it is not really doing him any good.'