All those years watching politicians squirm haven’t been wasted on Jeremy Paxman. He has at least learnt that attack is the best form of defence.
The former Newsnight presenter was called “oafish” and “rude” after hosting television grillings with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. Now he’s responded by criticising the two party leaders’ performance and appearance. “They resembled a nervous geography student and an ageing geography teacher,” he told the Financial Times. May dresses like a “Maidenhead matron”, he continued, while Corbyn resembles a polytechnic lecturer in trade union studies. Just for good measure, he also dismissed David Cameron as “one of the worst prime ministers in modern times”.
If Paxo is really on the way out, he’s going down fighting.
Hugh’s the one (the only) Lib Dem star
The Liberal Democrats have been inadvertently keeping a low profile during the campaign, but tomorrow they wheel out the big guns. Well, gun.
Hugh Grant is joining Simon Hughes to campaign in Bermondsey and Old Southwark. “Winning Hugh’s backing is a real coup,” says a constituency source. “A number of celebrities have been privately supportive but it takes bottle to raise one’s head above the parapet.”
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The actor is perhaps best known for his role in Love, Actually — officially the closest a Liberal Democrat has ever come to being prime minister.
Titbits
With four days until the polls open, would this be a good time to mention that running the country can be seriously bad for your health?
“Election to head of government is associated with a substantial increase in mortality risk compared with candidates . . . who never served,” said an American study, published in the British Medical Journal in 2015. At the very least, it plays havoc with your complexion and “may lead to accelerated ageing due to stress of leadership and political life”.
Still want the job?
● What brings people into politics (apart, of course, from an urgent need to find the money for a new duck house)? Labour’s Ian Murray, who was elected MP for Edinburgh South in 2010, is admirably frank.
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He tells The Tab student newspaper: “In 2002, after six pints of cider, I was asked if I wanted to run for the council and I stupidly said yes.”
● If Theresa May wants a popular policy to rescue her campaign, she could simply ask the voters in the Maidenhead seat she is defending.
Lord Buckethead, who is standing against the prime minister while wearing a bucket on his head, says a commitment to restore the Ceefax teletext service is proving remarkably popular: “My pledge has proved a big winner on the doorstep.”
A strong, stable bucket for a strong, stable Britain.
● A blue plaque was unveiled in Ackworth, West Yorkshire, last week in memory of John Gully, who was MP for Pontefract from 1832 until 1837.
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A former butcher, Gully was jailed for debt but raised money by taking part in illegal bare-knuckle fights against an opponent called ‘the Game Chicken’. He ran a pub, owned coal mines and gambled professionally, yet still found time to have 24 children with two wives.
Wouldn’t he have livened up last week’s televised debates?