Britain's diplomats have a new challenge: hiding their globes from Trump
Down on the farm
Life on The Archers can be cut-throat, says Charles Collingwood, who is marking 50 years playing the ageing lothario Brian Aldridge on the Radio 4 soap. He recalls getting into a BBC lift with Jack Holloway, who played Ralph Bellamy moments after Holloway was told that his character was being written out of the programme in 1980. 'When we got to the third floor where the bar was, he [Holloway] shot off to drown his sorrows,' Collingwood says. 'I went to join The Archers cast and said, 'I've just got in the lift with Jack Holloway – he says he's been written out of the programme?' They said, 'Yes, you've bought his farm!''
Bremner dismounts
The pressures of financing an equestrian career has become unsustainable for Rory Bremner and his daughter Lila, 21, an accomplished showjumper. 'It's the sheer cost of it all,' the TV impressionist told me at the Chelsea Flower Show. 'There is sponsorship but it is a very competitive world. To sustain it, I compare it to highwayman Dick Turpin – he had a phrase: 'your money or your life?' The horses get more and more expensive. You need hundreds of thousands. So she's gone to London to do a personal assistant's course and have some fun London days, like I did as a young man.' And why not?
Trump's present
Gordon Brown told how British prime ministers traditionally give presents to incoming US presidents at the John Smith Memorial Lecture this week. 'David Cameron gave Barack Obama a table tennis table. Rishi Sunak gave Joe Biden a Barbour jacket. Theresa May gave Donald Trump a hamper from Chequers. Boris Johnson gave some poetry,' Brown said. 'Keir Starmer has had to give gifts to the two presidents. He gave a gift to Joe Biden of an Arsenal jersey with 46 on it to denote the 46th president of the United States. I don't know if Joe Biden knew too much about Arsenal. And of course, he has already given a gift and sent it to Washington, to Donald Trump: It's Peter Mandelson.' Perhaps Gordon misses Peter?
Rodney's Brexit reset
The European Commission helpfully distributed photos of Sir Keir Starmer unveiling the Brexit Reset deal on Monday alongside European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Council of Europe president Antonio Costa. The only problem was that while the other leaders were correctly captioned, the PM was described as 'Rodney Starmer'. Rodney is of course the PM's middle name. But could there be an Only Fools and Horses fan working for the Eurocrats? As Delboy said: 'This time next year, we'll be millionaires!'
Beaverbrook's bashes are back
Jonathan Aitken, 82, ex-Conservative minister and now a prison chaplain, has started a new political supper club called the Beaverbrook Forum to re-create the parties thrown by his uncle, Lord Beaverbrook, who owned the Daily Express and served in Churchill's wartime government. Political veterans Lord Gummer and Diane Abbott, as well as Robert Jenrick's wife Michal, dined on champagne and shepherd's pie as Aitken recalled how 'Bollinger Bolsheviks' such as Nye Bevan used to love Beaverbrook's parties. The future Labour leader Michael Foot was apparently so spoiled by Beaverbrook that he was allowed to stay for free in a house in Beaverbrook's garden. Sir Keir's Starmer's freebies from Lord Alli look like small beer.
O'Flynn's fiscal legacy
RIP the much-missed Patrick O'Flynn, 59, the former Ukip MEP, as well as Daily Telegraph and GB News commentator, who died this week. One of his most memorable policies as Ukip's economic spokesman was for a tax on luxury goods like designer shoes, and handbags to win over former Labour voters. O'Flynn's so-called 'WAG tax' was unveiled at Ukip's conference in September 2014 and axed by leader Nigel Farage two days later, after an outcry. Farage declared: 'It was a discussion point yesterday, it isn't going to happen.' Perhaps with Farage's Reform leading the polls, the WAG tax's time will come again?
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