The final resting place of the ‘EdStone’, the 8.5ft stone tablet on which Labour‘s then leader Ed Miliband had six manifesto pledges carved before the 2015 election, has long been a matter of debate.
Miliband had vowed to install it in the Downing Street rose garden ‘as a reminder of our duty to keep Labour’s promises’ but, after he was defeated by David Cameron‘s Tories, it disappeared without trace.
So imagine my surprise when I came across the monument to Miliband’s vanity at the Nevill Holt Festival, on the estate of Carphone Warehouse founder David Ross, where I was interviewing Mail columnist Sarah Vine about her compelling book How Not To Be A Political Wife.
Alas, I hadn’t got a scoop. The stone was an imitation commissioned by Ross.
Money talks for Rishi
Since his general election defeat last July, Rishi Sunak has been only a fleeting visitor to the Commons and has steered clear of set-piece speeches.
Perhaps he’s been saving his voice for his lucrative engagements abroad. For just three speaking events since April, he’s trousered a cool half a million pounds. Two speeches in America and one in South Korea yielded £161,000, £156,000 and £188,000. Not bad work if you can get it.
Commons Tea Room tantrums are breaking out over young politicians bringing their offspring into the hallowed ‘MPs only’ watering hole.
As one veteran Member fumed: ‘It’s ridiculous… What’s wrong with the nursery, for God’s sake?’
Political hacks at Westminster love a leak – but they are getting fed up with the one in the main gents loo in the Press Gallery. The facilities have been closed for weeks.
One frustrated journalist sighed: ‘We all know Whitehall leak inquiries are designed to take ages and get nowhere but this is beyond a joke.’
While the world teetered on the brink of war in the Middle East, MPs went to a yoga class organised by Tory MP Bob Blackman to mark International Yoga Day last Thursday. Contorting yourself into implausible positions while saying ‘Umm’? It’s natural for politicians.
Take with a pinch of salt Lib Dem pearl-clutching about the national inquiry into grooming gangs being overdue. When a vote was held on the issue in January, the 72 Lib Dem MPs abstained.
Brian’s no fan of Starmer
Labour luvvie Brian Cox, treading the boards in his home city of Dundee, is unhappy with Sir Keir Starmer.
The Succession star, who is playing economist Adam Smith in Make It Happen, a play about the Royal Bank of Scotland, says: ‘Everything for Starmer is England. He talks about England. I’m sick of it. I’m fed up. He talks about English football.’
Following a string of bad results under new England manager Thomas Tuchel, Cox can take some consolation from the fact that, these days, Starmer has less to crow about.
TV producer Linda McDougall was at the launch of Iain Dale’s book about Margaret Thatcher when an acquaintance inquired: ‘How is Austin?’ McDougall laughed like a drain and said her Labour MP husband Austin Mitchell was ‘still dead’.
