Fine words are not enough in modern politics. You also need pretty pictures. With this in mind, Brandon Lewis, the new Tory chairman, invited MPs to a session on how to use Instagram, the photo-sharing website. Eager to be the class swot, Liz Truss had already posted a picture yesterday of an arrangement of vegetables she saw in Westminster. No, not the cabinet arriving in Downing Street. “What a wonderful display of onions,” the chief secretary to the Treasury wrote, remembering old briefings from her Defra days. After failing to shine as a minister, perhaps Truss is placing all her hope in knowing her onions. “Spem in allium” as Jacob Rees-Mogg would punningly put it.
Do actors write fan mail? Celia Imrie, asked by Empire magazine, says she once wrote to a critic after he gave her a lovely review. Bad mistake. “He promptly gave me an absolutely vile review next,” she says. “I’m not doing that again.”
GODSPEED
Sir Keith Speed, the former Tory minister for the Royal Navy, has died, aged 83. In 1981 he was sacked by Thatcher because of his opposition to defence cuts imposed by the Treasury (some things never change) with the acquiescence of his boss, John Nott. He was proved right soon after when General Galtieri invaded the Falklands. There was a saying in the Navy at the time that what the fleet needed was “more Speed, fewer Notts”.
Are the House of Commons caterers psychic? With Nigel Farage and Henry Bolton unavoidable over the airwaves it seemed rather appropriate that the breakfast special in the Commons canteen was “Grilled Kippers”.
MAY BURNS MORE BRIDGES
Eager to mend bridges with Scottish drinkers after she named a Welsh whisky as her favourite tipple, Theresa May threw a Burns Night party on Monday. Alas, the guest list was full of typos. The names of five guests were wrong, three of them Tory MPs, as were the titles of the Scotch Whisky Association and Scottish Rugby Union. Perhaps this was all a subtle tribute to Rabbie Burns, who was inconsistent in how he spelt even his own name.
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L’Affaire Bolton has become a modern Profumo scandal, according to Jonathan Bullock, a Ukip MEP, who yesterday resigned as energy spokesman in protest at his priapic leader. “It has politics, sex, a model, even the royal family,” he says. “The only thing missing is a Russian spy.” Give it time, give it time.
DAY-LEWIS TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Sir Daniel Day-Lewis has a chance of winning a fourth best actor Oscar after being nominated yesterday for Phantom Thread, his final film. Gary Oldman, with whom he has a rivalry going back more than 30 years, is also on the shortlist. Stephen Frears, who gave Day-Lewis his big break in My Beautiful Laundrette in 1985, says that his shortlist for that role comprised Day-Lewis, Oldman, Kenneth Branagh and Tim Roth but he was swayed by Day-Lewis’s sex appeal. “The girls all said, ‘You want Dan. He’s top of the crumpet list’,” Frears recalls. A reason for hiring that would spark outcry today if made about a woman. At least I assume they all fancied him. Perhaps he was just very good at making high tea.
