The Londoner: Gavin Williamson finds words of wisdom

Gavin Williamson gets speaking advice from Theresa May / Anthony Scaramucci backs Trump on Iran / The battle of Tom Hollands / Conservative Instagram curse
Advised: Gavin Williamson and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach
Getty Images
1 May 2018

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, pictured, was thought to be the star of his own private production of Pygmalion when a number of sources in the Commons said he was taking elocution lessons or speech therapy — something his team hotly denied. But has the mystery of this whispering campaign been solved? The former Chief Whip says it was not his style of speaking that needed ironing out but the substance.

Williamson famously said Vladimir Putin should “go away and shut up” after the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, allegedly by Russian agents. So Theresa May, he says, took him in hand. “The Prime Minister called me to explain: ‘Gavin, it’s all well and good being a direct-speaking Yorkshireman but as Defence Secretary you have to be more diplomatic in your language, in your tone. Being Defence Secretary is about carefully and thoughtfully choosing words.’”

Williamson says he wholeheartedly agreed that it was important to strike a more diplomatic tone. “Always keen to improve, I asked if she had any advice, anyone I could speak to, anyone who could explain how best to do this. As quick as a flash, she said, ‘Well, we have the world’s greatest diplomatic service, renowned across the world. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is seen as a perfect example of ... or maybe this time you shouldn’t speak to the Foreign Secretary.’”

Whoever he did find to impart wisdom has also taught him the art of comic timing. “You don’t appreciate the dangers I face,” he went on to despair to an audience of journalists at the Irish Embassy. “I have to go to countries where there is conflict, into areas where there is real hostility towards us as a nation and our armed forces.

“Whether that’s Afghanistan, where we continue to deal with the issue of a resurgent Taliban, whether that is Iraq where we continue to have to deal with the issue of Daesh. Or whether it is closer to home, having to visit the Treasury.”

Ex-aide tips Trump to talk Iran around

Donald Trump called the Iran nuclear deal a “horrible agreement for the United States” last night after Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu alleged covert activity in Tehran. But Anthony Scaramucci, his short-lived former comms director, thinks Potus will sort it with his own peculiar brand of diplomacy. “He’ll cut a deal with the Iranians,” he tells the Media Matters podcast. “Once he solves this situation in North Korea he’ll bring the hammer on the Iranians. That theocratic regime is very unstable and it will break under the strong will of President Trump.”

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Gary Goldsmith, the hard-drinking uncle of The Duchess of Cambridge and Pippa Middleton who was fined £5,000 for assaulting his wife Julie-Ann last year, is having business trouble. Posted on Companies House last week was news that his company, Finchain Recruitment, has received notice for compulsory strike-off.

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Grouchy: Henry Porter (Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
Getty Images for Vanity Fair

How is former editor Henry Porter enjoying life after Vanity Fair? We heard he’s helping out Chuka Umunna’s Grassroots Co-ordinating Group. “You’ve got it arse about face as usual,” Porter snarled down the phone today. “There’s not a f***ing project. I’m in a bad enough mood as it is, so why don’t you just ring off?”

All that jazz, from Esperanza to Anoushka and the evergreen Cleo

Jazzy: Jay Rayner and Ezra (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Dave Benett/Getty Images

Jazz stars Cécile McLorin Salvant, Esperanza Spalding and Nubya Garcia were joined by sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar — daughter of Ravi Shankar and half-sister of jazz singer Norah Jones — at last night’s Jazz FM Awards at Shoreditch Town Hall. But it was the British jazz great and undoubted matriarch of the scene, 90-year-old Dame Cleo Laine, belting out a surprise rendition of I’ve got a Crush on You — after collecting the PPL Lifetime Achievement Award — who got the crowd going. For drum ’n’ bass star Goldie, another jazz legend made his night. The gold-toothed geezer revealed that all his arrangements and ideas had been influenced by guitarist Pat Metheny’s music over the years. “Who would have thought?” he asked. nly not the hedonists of the 1990s UK rave scene.

Holland gets caught in Spider-Man’s web

tom-hollands.jpg, by admin

Until 2015 there was only one Tom Holland in town: the historian and author of best-selling Rubicon, pictured above left. Then an actor arrived on the scene and won accolades as Spider-Man in the Avengers superhero franchise and now the two are endlessly confused.

“It’s constant hell,” Holland the historian tells me. “I keep thinking it’s going to stop and it never stops, and I just say ‘please stop’. My entire Twitter feed has been people telling me how great I was in Infinity Wars, and I’m delighted I’ve turned in a brilliant performance, but it gets exhausting.”

SW1A

The curse of Tory Instagram strikes again. Remember the embarrassing photos from Conservative Party conference in October? Out of the unlucky 13 ministers snapped, six have been pushed or resigned since . The latest is Amber Rudd, pictured above, who posed with a plastic water cup. Who’s next? Well, after Rudd in the series comes Jeremy Hunt, smiling behind a red door. Watch out, Jeremy.

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Jeremy Corbyn swept into Barnet yesterday, stopping to meet campaigners in a café for a photo op. Essential ahead of Thursday’s local elections, but although the leader of the Labour group was told, local councillors and candidates were left disappointed to miss their beloved leader.

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How does Sajid Javid always look so neat? Huffington Post politico Paul Waugh says the slick new Home Secretary uses a Gillette MACH3 Turbo razor every day to keep his head smooth.

Quote of the day

Frisbee: Jan Koum (Photo credit TOBIAS HASE/AFP/Getty Images)
AFP/Getty Images

“I’m taking time off to do the things I enjoy outside of technology. Such as working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee”

WhatsApp founder Jan Koum quits to enjoy the finer things

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