Londoner's Diary: Theresa May supples some political thrills

Getty Images / WPA Pool / Pool
10 August 2016

Truth is stranger than fiction, and no one knows that more than Richard Kelly, author of new political thriller The Knives, which came out last week and has already received acclaim. The novel, which has been in the works for several years, profiles a rising Tory Home Secretary widely tipped to become Prime Minister, and while Kelly followed Theresa May’s career closely for his research, even he couldn’t have predicted quite how timely his tale would be.

“Sometimes events are more than you can bear,” he told us this morning. “It has been a big year in politics, bigger than some of us would have liked.”

Kelly is now an accidental expert on the new Prime Minister, having starting his research in 2009. “Theresa May endured as Home Secretary throughout those years — right up to her recent promotion,” he said. “Her discharging of duties at Marsham Street was of obvious interest to me.”

Does he recommend that May read his book? “I would like her to,” he joked. “I am sure she is well on top of most of her briefs. Whether anything would surprise her I don’t know.” Her ascent to power may have made her the most powerful person in the country, but Kelly insists that her work in the Home Office leaves quite the legacy. “The Home Secretary job was thought of as the graveyard of ambition,” he said. “But now it could be the great stepping stone to the seat of power.”

Despite his prescience, Kelly wasn’t so aware when it came to naming the book. “By 2010 I had a title for the piece,” he confessed. “Homeland... but I was just too slow out of the blocks on that score.”

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A spot of culture for The Sun’s chief political correspondent Craig Woodhouse. He is joining the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as a special adviser, working for new Secretary of State Karen Bradley. The department has had some trouble with The Sun’s owner. Adam Smith, an aide to then Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, resigned in 2012 following suggestions that he had got too close to News Corp while it was trying to take over BSkyB. But a new dawn has risen.

Ashcroft and Oakeshott are at it again

When the unauthorised biography of David Cameron was published last year, its co-author Lord Ashcroft missed the launch party after developing septic shock. So it’s good to see that he’s fighting fit again. Last night he tweeted a screengrab of his day’s rehabilitation exercises.

He’ll need to be alert: The Londoner hears he will team up again with Call Me Dave co-author Isabel Oakeshott as soon as she has released a Brexit exposé with Leave.EU backer Arron Banks.

The duo, we’re told, are planning another biography. The only clue so far? It’s not George Osborne. He will surely sleep soundly.

Julie and Richard Beatle about

An evening at Vue West End last night, with a screening of new documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years. Romcom king Richard Curtis and actress Julie Walters, were among Fab Four fans in attendance.

Walters may not have time for such nights out for long: appearing on Radio 4’s Front Row last week she teased about a possible role at the National Theatre. “They have been touch with something, but I can’t say what it is because I don’t know whether I’m going to be doing it or not”, she said. “I’m not sure at the moment.”

Hey Julie, don’t be afraid.

Duke met his match in the darkroom

The late Duke of Westminster may have been a wealthy landowner and shrewd investor but he wasn’t one for lording it over the average working man.

Simon Ricketts, a Guardian journalist, shared an anecdote from his time at a local newspaper owned by Westminster Press on Twitter last night. Surveying his property, the duke had a toastie in the staff canteen and then toured the newsroom, making a special effort to visit the photographer’s old-school darkroom.

In it he found Malcolm, a veteran staff photographer, purportedly “not known for his cheery demeanour”. The duke entered to a frosty reception. “What do you want? I’m busy,” barked Malcolm, determined to continue his work. The duke was undeterred. “He’s a live wire,” he said to an aide. “Full of spirit.” Malcolm was not impressed. “No, seriously,” he asked. “What the f*** do you want?”

“Lovely”, chuckled the duke, innocuously holding out a hand. “I’m the Duke of Westminster.”

“Yeah, well,” Malcolm responded. “I’m the Shah of f***ing Persia. So get out of my darkroom.”

The Duke took the slight in good grace and obliged, chortling. “That’s my Duke of Westminster story,” Ricketts tweeted. “But it’s really a Malcolm story.”

Following these recollections, Ricketts acknowledged that he may have mixed up his Dukes and that the visit may have been from the Duke of Atholl. Either way, Malcolm is our new favourite photographer.

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Despite her 19 Oscar nominations, Meryl Streep doesn’t have it all down to a tee, which is some comfort to Hugh Grant. “I can’t do a lot of things,” Streep said in New York yesterday, publicising their biopic Florence Foster Jenkins, “like golf: I never hit the ball.” Grant, who has 19 fewer Oscar nods, said: “I’d like to see you be bad at something — it would be very comforting.”

Eugenie wolfs it all down

Princess Eugenie reveals her healthy lifestyle in this month’s Harper’s Bazaar. But she also likes a good slap-up meal — she names Soho Italian restaurant Bocca di Lupo as her favourite place to eat out.

Co-owner and head chef Jacob Kenedy isn’t surprised. “On the occasions we have had royal guests they seem to have enjoyed themselves as much as those around them enjoyed the tingle of proximity,” he told The Londoner. “Food is a history of people, and the royals are a living emblem of a historical institution. I like the poesy when they eat with the masses.”

Does he encourage more royals to book a table? “I would love to invite them in... but I suspect they get many invitations,” he said. Let them eat moscardini.

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Just deserts of the day: the BBC is to install a George Orwell statue, 73 years after its former employee quit for being forced to do “work that produces no result”.

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