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The diary
Independent on Sunday, The, Dec 11, 2005 by Iain Dale
Having fought 11 general elections you might be forgiven for thinking that Michael Howard would be familiar with putting a cross in a box on a ballot paper. But my spies in the 1922 Committee tell me he almost managed to spoil his ballot paper in the Tory leadership election ballot among MPs. Apparently he ticked a box rather than put a cross in it. Realising his mistake he asked if that was OK and was reassured his vote would still count. I'm told that when the ballot boxes were emptied only one of the 198 ballot papers had a tick on it. All the money in the world couldn't drag from me whose box he had ticked " it is after all a secret ballot " but suffice to say it wasn't against the box marked Davis.
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The field of possible successors to Boris Johnson as 'Spectator' editor is widening. Matthew D'Ancona, Peter Oborne and Simon Heffer have all been mooted, and Ian Martin of 'Scotland on Sunday' has recently hit the front (see Media), but yet another name is increasingly being talked about, the 'jack of all trades' from 'The Times', Andrew Pierce. His dark-horse candidature is being promoted partly on the basis that Andrew Neil, who now effectively runs The Speccie, is known to be a great fan (and it was Pierce who broke the news that Boris would be, er, choosing politics ahead of journalism). Neil has said there will be no announcement until the new year. Pierce has just departed on a 10-day holiday.
Much merriment in the corridors of the House of Commons this week as Jack Straw was observed with a safety pin through his flies. On a salary of pounds 140,000 you'd have thought he could afford a new zipper.
Isn't it amazing how many new friends you acquire when you achieve your 15 minutes of fame? When Carol Thatcher returns to these shores from the jungle, she may well be rather surprised to find her 'good friend' Linda McDougall quoted in most of the papers. 'I love her to bits,' McDougall gushed to 'The Guardian'. 'She's one of the nicest, funniest people I've ever met.' And she told the 'Telegraph': 'I'm very fond of her.' The truth is the two had a massive falling-out after the TV documentary they made together about Carol's father in 2002. Having reassured Lady T's advisers that McDougall could be totally trusted, the Jungle Queen felt totally betrayed and humiliated by McDougall's 'Sunday Times' article where she went into minute detail about the state of the Iron Lady's health. McDougall, who's married to maverick Labour MP Austin Mitchell, felt she'd written a sympathetic piece and couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Now that Carol has also talked about her mother's health in public maybe a reconciliation is on the cards.
Although Dennis Skinner's attack on George Osborne made the headlines on Thursday, he had been at it again a few days earlier during Home Office Questions. He launched several verbal assaults on the Tory front bench, accusing them, and their new leader in particular, of all sorts of drug related activities. Sad to say that the Speaker was too busy gossiping with an adviser to notice and pull him up. Skinner said on Thursday that the allegations about Osborne must be true because they had been in the News of the World. This reached a state of Whitehall farce when Tory MPs gently pointed out that the Beast of Bolsover wasn't quite so forthcoming when the News of the Screws exposed his affair with his secretary a few years ago under the headline 'The Beast of Legover'.
Conservative MPs are none too impressed at their new leader's choice of deputy chief whip. It's unusual, to say the least, to appoint someone with no 'whipping' experience. One ex-whip said the news would be received in the whips' office 'like a bucket of cold sick'. Former SAS soldier Andrew Robathan has already had a less than distinguished start to his new duties. On Wednesday he instructed Davis defector Nadine Dorries to go into the chamber before Prime Minister's questions and reserve seats for the most fragrant female Tory MPs as a background for their new leader. Looks good on TV, you see. Old Tory lags Eric Forth and Andrew MacKay quickly clocked what she was doing and told her in no uncertain terms it was against the rules and to push off. So instead of seeing Cameron surrounded by adoring women, TV viewers were treated to Eric Forth's leather waistcoat and kaleidoscopic tie and Andrew MacKay's grey suit. Robathan, an early recruit to the Cameron team, pitched to be chief whip claiming he was the only one who could control Davis lieutenants Derek Conway and Andrew Mitchell. That pleasant task now falls to Patrick McLoughlin, possibly the only former miner to have joined the Tory top table.
All-round good egg Gyles Brandreth was in top form at the Parliamentary press gallery Christmas bash this week. In his capacity as best friend of the royals he told a tale about how the Queen got more than she bargained for at a recent Royal Variety performance. At the climax of a performance of the stripping scene from The Full Monty she copped a full eyeful of British manhood. Brandreth was horrified until Prince Philip leaned over and whispered to him: 'I wouldn't worry; she's been to Papua New Guinea, you know. She's seen it all before.'
