I HAD that bloke from “Corrie” over for dinner last night. The dodgy businessman with the cockney accent. A few weeks before, I cooked a steak for the woman who does that property programme. You know the one. And I had the cast of Grange Hill (1986 vintage) round for Christmas lunch.
My girlfriend can’t understand why I bother. She doesn’t see the point of any of them. She says I should stop wasting my time entertaining low-rent celebs and should stick to reading improving books.
What do you think? That they’re a bit infra dig? Well, I couldn’t care less. If I want to have them over to my pad, I will. So they’re not Nobel prizewinners. Live with it, snob features.
To those of us who marvel at the infinite capacity of the British Establishment’s capacity for snobbery, the reaction to the revelation that Tony and Cherie Blair have had some pop stars, some soap actors and — ooh, the sheer ghastliness of it — Richard and Judy over to Chequers for dinner has been a treat. Writing yesterday in the Daily Mail, for instance, Sir Roy Strong wailed at the Blairs’ “monument to populism . . .The idea of inviting Harold Pinter or Dame Antonia Byatt . . . would paralyse them”.
Cripes. Sir Roy must really loathe the Prime Minister. I’m not sure it would be fair to inflict Mr Pinter even on Saddam, the man he was wonted to leave in power. The truth behind the criticisms has nothing to do with the quality or otherwise of guests such as Sting, Dawn French and Sir Elton John. What this is really about is that Sir Roy and his ilk simply can’t stand the fact that the Blairs are not content to keep Chequers as the preserve of a charmed few, and clearly believe that they should spread their hospitality beyond a few pompous former museum directors and foreign dignitaries.
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Horror of horrors, the Blairs appear to believe that a home given in trust to the nation should be enjoyed by those whom the nation enjoy. When the Blairs invite Cilla Black, Geri Halliwell and Sir Steve Redgrave over for a spot of dinner, they’re not hosting seminars on welfare dependency and disintermediation. They’re not asking their guests to pass on policy advice. They’re asking them to pass the cheeseboard.
Prime Minister and his wife caught . . . entertaining. As scandals go, it’s hardly John Major and Edwina Currie, is it?