Quotes of the week
“He is a little moron with the brains of an empty ashtray”
The Belgian lawyer Sven Mary on his former client, the alleged Paris bomber Salah Abdeslam
“After two out of every five Budgets, I eat my own words”
George Osborne reveals his own version of the 5:2 diet
“You’re never going to win a contest for being the most liked person”
Health secretary will be my last big job in politics, says Jeremy Hunt
“I earn an obscene amount”
Manchester United’s £150,000-a-week midfielder Juan Mata says he’d happily take a pay cut if football were less commercial
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“Bear Grylls celebrates a masculinity that is useless”
He should try finding an affordable flat in Finsbury Park, says the artist Grayson Perry
“If Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5% of the vote”
The US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, ever the charmer
Fighting talk
Have Samantha Cameron and Sarah Vine, the wife of the justice secretary, Michael Gove, fallen out because their husbands are on different sides of the Brexit debate?
The long-time friends reportedly had a stand-up row at the 50th birthday party of Lord Feldman, the Tory chairman (as a way of entertaining guests it was probably cheaper than a conjurer). The prime minister’s wife apparently took exception to one of Mrs Gove’s newspaper columns in which she revealed their friendship had been strained by the campaign. A “well-placed source” told The Sun: “The pair ended up raising their voices and ‘effing and blinding’.”
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So it’s official: if Britain leaves the European Union, your wife and her friends will no longer be on speaking terms.
Animal antics
Dogs have long struck fear into posties (even the tough ones who wear shorts in the winter) but can a fluffy cat really do the same? The Royal Mail has warned a Bristol couple, Laura Lowe and Matthew Sampson, that their post won’t be delivered until Bella, a four year old cat who leaps up to scratch the letter box as the mail arrives, is restrained.
“I did notice there was blood around the letter box,” says Laura. “She thinks it’s a game when she tries to grab things that come through.” The couple have now agreed to instal an external mailbox.
Going viral
It’s time to pack away the decorations and look back on another successful Ed Balls Day.
Thursday marked five years since the then shadow chancellor accidentally tweeted the words “Ed Balls” while trying to search for his name on Twitter. The day is now marked every year on April 28 , though some feel the celebrations have become too commercial (Ed Balls dough balls indeed — thank you, Domino’s Pizza).
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Balls’s wife, the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, insisted he bake a commemorative cake, above, though one tweeter remarked: “Of course, you aren’t allowed to call it Ed Balls Day any more because of all the PC gone mad. You have to call it Ballsterval.”