Charles Moore’s impressive authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher mentions her friendship with the late Sir Jimmy Savile, who wrote to her from Stoke Mandeville Hospital after lunching with the then-PM at Chequers saying: ‘My girl patients (my italics) pretended to be madly jealous and wanted to know what you wore...’
Admitting the correspondence now seems ‘distinctly macabre’, Moore says: ‘Mrs Thatcher, like so many others, took Savile at face value.’
Jimmy Savile wrote to Mrs Thatcher from Stoke Mandeville Hospital after lunching with the then-PM at Chequers
Home Secretary Theresa May, discussing the Government’s attempts to deport radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, advises Tory MP Mark Reckless in the Commons: ‘Urging the Government to break the law is, if I may say so, a Reckless step.’
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EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Perhaps the BBC should have edited out Rolf Harris' Benny-Hill-style slip up 23/04/13
Can the monarch avoid anointing Blair with the Order of Merit? 22/04/13
Andrew Roberts may not have appeared at the reception after Lady T's funeral, but his loyalty shouldn't be questioned 18/04/13
Three general election wins, but will Mr Blair be remembered in the same way as Lady Thatcher? 17/04/13
Poor show: Obama Administration doesn't deem Lady Thatcher's funeral important enough to attend 16/04/13
Speaker Bercow 'taken aback' by PM's request to recall Parliament following Thatcher death. But how did he know? 15/04/13
Is Cristina Kirchner actually set to attend Thatcher's funeral? 11/04/13
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Very punny. But surely her plan to suspend our adherence to human rights laws long enough to expel Qatada is comedy of a higher quality.
David Cameron addressed the 90th anniversary party of the backbench 1922 committee at Westminster’s Blue Boar restaurant, flattering the self-important boobies by saying: ‘I told Samantha I was going to see the 22.
She said, it could be worse, they could be coming to see you.’ But do you suppose the delightful Mrs Cameron, pictured, who designs fancy stationery, is really so knowledgable about the 22’s exaggerated reputation for PM-removing?
Queen guitarist and animal rights campaigner Brian May is teaming up with ultra-noisy actor Brian Blessed on a pop song protesting the badger cull. BB will bawl: ‘We need badgers alive!’ The late 8th Earl of Arran, known as Boofy Gore, introduced private members’ bills protecting homosexuals and badgers, saying afterwards: ‘When I spoke about badgers no-one turned up but when I spoke about ******* the place was packed out. Very few badgers in the Lords.’
The late actor Oliver Reed’s son Mark is involved in a new Dublin stage show about his father, Wild Thing. Mark’s favourite memory is of the 1976 drought when the local authority near their property in Broome Hall, Surrey, refused Reed permission to fill his pool for a party. Reed, who died aged 61 in 1999, was undaunted. Mark says: ‘He did a belly flop onto a table loaded with food and drink, smashing everything, before walking away completely unscathed.’
Priapic ex-President Bill Clinton, 66, is honoured by US gays for endorsing homo-sexual marriage, which he had opposed. He credits his daughter Chelsea, 33, for changing his views, saying: ‘Chelsea and her gay friends have modelled for me how we should all treat each other regardless of our sexual orientation or any other artificial difference that divides us. I have grown very attached to them.’ Look out!
Apropos British drug smuggler Lindsay Sandiford, under sentence of death in Indonesia, Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire tells the Commons: ‘The Foreign Secretary raised our objections to the use of the death penalty with the Indonesian Foreign Minister in November 2012.’ Interestingly, William Hague, while Tory leader, supported the death penalty. Perhaps he backs it here but not in Indonesia.