Tim Questing Volt A n old and semi-apocryphal story lumbers in
to seek shelter from the bitter February cold. It concerns negotiations between Sir Peter Tapsell, the 74-year-old Conservative member for Louth and Homcastle, and his constituency association, ahead of the forthcoming general election. The nub of the story is this: Sir Peter's association sought to dissuade him from standing on the grounds of his advanced age, reasoning that, should he pop his clogs mid-term, the cash-strapped Tories of Louth and Homcastle would be unable to bear the cost of fighting a byelection. (Such hard-headed calculations are, apparently, to be expected in our wintry polity.) Sir Peter is said to have written, with a flourish, a personal cheque for the estimated £10,000 cost of a by-election campaign, with the instruction that it be cashed in the event of his death. Is it true?
!This story crops up around every five 1 years,' says Sir Peter, who shows not the slightest sign of offence at the morbid nub of the tale. 'The facts of the matter are this. I have a will — like most people — and in my will I have left money to all sorts of people. Years ago, I arranged to leave E10,000 to my constituency association, which I have represented for more than 40 years. That provision stands unaltered to this day. And I did once joke to a member of my association — in the context of the cost of fighting a general election — that it would be better for them if! died in the middle of a Parliament, because then the bequest would conveniently cover the cost of the campaign. However.' he adds. 'I have no intention of dying. That is not part of my plans. At my last medical check-up, my doctor told me that my heart statistics would "do credit to a 22-year-old Olympic athlete". I have a home in the Swiss Alps. and I walk very vigorously there all through the summer recess. In November 2003, my blood pressure was 114 over 72. I dare say that's rather better than yours.' He's right, too. We salute him.
Andrew Gilligan's old employer, the Sunday Telegraph, launched a homicidally aggressive attack on the reputation of the controversial former Today reporter at the weekend. Mr Gilligan was characterised as a 'Humpty Dumpty' whose efforts to `re-glue himself were so crude `you could almost smell the Llhu'. Being 'insecure yet arrogant', `extreme eccentricity', 'control freakery'. 'strange eating habits', and 'a good sense of humour' were among the many stinging charges levelled against Mr Gilligan — along with the fact that he tad negotiated to sell his story to a Sunday newspaper [not the Sunday Telegraph'.
Most improbable, admirable Nimby alliance of the year: Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke and the distinguished crime writer Baroness (P.D.) James of Holland Park. The cause that united them? Opposition to the development of a large extension to Oxford's Ashmolean museum in St John Street, which would have involved up to three years of heavy lorries trundling through their tranquil manor. Mr Yorke was so animated in his opposition that he stormed out of one council meeting in disgust at the refusal of his bourgeois co-protestors to countenance direct action. Happily, the Ashmolean plans have been momentarily put on ice for want of funds; so precluding the danger of a 'benefit concert' featuring Mr Yorke and Baroness James warbling a duet.
Those readers with televisions will doubtless be as gripped as I am by the Dr-Fischer-of-Geneva-style carnival of human degradation that parades nightly across our screens on I'm A Celebrity. . . Get Me Out of Here! Those readers with titles will doubtless also be dismayed by the apish caperings of the show's token aristocrat, the insurance fraudster and serial bottom-polisher Lord Brocket. Gad, but the man's a cad and a ninny. Still, at least he seems to know it. When I ran into him shortly before he disappeared into the jungle, I asked whether his title really meant he was as posh as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. 'Huh. A title doesn't mean much. These days all you need is three box-tops from Kellogg's and a letter to Tony Blair and they make you a Lord.' Quite so.
The news that the entrepreneur Luke Johnson, son of my admired colleague Paul Johnson, is taking over as chairman of Channel 4 should be greeted with delight by all right-minded Spectator readers. But one nagging anxiety intrudes. Mr Johnson is best known for his activities as supremo of Pizza Express. This column will, as a public service, be keeping a very sharp watch on him indeed, and will be the first to blow the whistle if Channel 4 programmes start appearing to get smaller.
Iknow. I shouldn't. My doctor has told me not to, and just writing his name is causing my fur to fall out in clumps. But — argh! — Trevor Phillips just annoys me so much. Mr Phillips was canvassed by a newspaper on the future of the BBC. Could his opening sentence have been more glib, more meaningless, more oilily self-regarding? 'I am passionate about the BBC, As if being embroiled in a murderous conspiracy was not enough, there is further sadness for Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed, He has been forced to issue a product-recall notice in top people's paper the Times that may permanently damage his standing as a purveyor of culinary fancies to the aristocracy. It emerges that Mr Fayed's tinned mince-pie programme has been infiltrated by a batch of rogue Bakewell tarts. A full month and a bit after Christmas, surreally enough, comes the warning: Bakewell tarts may contain nuts. More to the point, surely, Bakewell tarts are — whisper it — a rather common form of sugary comestible; not quite the thing the purchasers of Harrods finest mince pies expect to find for pudding. The obvious implication: that a Traditional Mince Pie With Harrods Brandy and these proletarian old Bakewell tarts (not stocked by Harrods, a spokesman assures me) are, in fact, made in the same factory (God forbid people start thinking that these luxury goods are the same old rubbish in different boxes). Alas, it's the case. Harrods was alerted by a customer who had been 'a bit surprised' to find a Bakewell tart in his tin rather than the promised mince pie. Nobody has yet expired from eating a Bakewell tart in error, but Mr Fayed has had the good grace to shell out on recalling the approximately 750 pies, or tarts, affected.
And while we're on New Labour sweetiepies, how about (the formerly Red) Ken Livingstone? The mayor of London was this week photographed in front of a salmon-pink wall of New Labour logos. His tie colour: imperial purple.
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