through my letterbox saying: “Unfortunately there was no reply when Edwina Hart, your Labour candidate called today. We hope we can count on your support in the Assembly Election.”’
Lyn Thomas, Swansea, The Times
Tony Blair was 50 on 6 May 2003 and the Daily Telegraph printed ‘50 good things about the man’. No. 1 on their list was: ‘He reads the Daily Telegraph.’
No. 1 on the Daily Mail’s list of ‘50 facts about the Premier’ was: ‘His nickname at Fettes College was Miranda, because of his fresh face and long hair.’ No. 30 was: ‘His children call him Lionel.’ No. 50 was: ‘He sang in the cathedral choir during his time at Durham Choristers’ Preparatory School, where he was nicknamed Smiling Boy.’
The Telegraph signed off their 50-good things with: ‘Regular readers may be pleased to know that a list of 50 not-so-good things about the Prime Minister would be a lot harder to do – there’s such a lot to choose from. All the same, Happy Birthday, Mr Blair. Tomorrow normal service is resumed.’
Responding to reports that somebody had scribbled insulting graffiti on a House of Commons table, Gordon Elliot, of Selborne, Hampshire, asked in the Independent: ‘Are you sure that the inscription didn’t read: “Tony Blair is a cult”?’
Since House of Commons committees began meeting at the new early time of 8.55 a.m., MPs are calling for a tea-trolley service. A Commons Early Day Motion states that MPs need the ‘stimulation and refreshment of a reviving cup of tea’. Labour MP Stephen Pound said: ‘I like tea so strong you can trot a mouse across its surface.’
Daily Mail
At a Downing Street reception Lady Thatcher took great delight in showing visitors where she had seated Giscard when he was the French president – directly opposite portraits of Nelson and Wellington.
Independent
Former Labour leader Michael Foot was criticised for wearing a ‘donkey jacket’ at the Cenotaph Remembrance Service in 1981. In an interview just before his 90th birthday he said: ‘It wasn’t a donkey jacket. It was a perfectly respectable green coat. The Queen Mother liked it very much… I’ve got quite a few donkey jackets now, because lots of people send them to me in the post.’
Daily Telegraph
‘Perhaps I could visit Harrogate and lounge on that beach this summer.’ Thus spake Education Secretary Charles Clarke in the Commons, forgetting that the Yorkshire spa town is landlocked and 70 miles from the nearest coast.
Daily Telegraph
At the height of Victorian power and prosperity in 1851 the government employed 1,628 civil servants. In 2003 the government employed a total of 516,000.
Daily Mail
An entry in the House of Commons Register of Members’ Interests from shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram, covering his visit to China: ‘The cost of my flights were met by the Conservative Party and all hotel accommodation was provided by courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party.’
Independent
‘My seven-year-old niece’s autograph book was sent to No.10 and she received a photograph of the Prime Minister with a facsimile signature. She read out to us the accompanying note and it came out as: “A photograph of the Prime Minister with a fake smile.”’
Nigel Swann, Derbyshire, Daily Telegraph
As a result of his statue of Lady Thatcher being brutally beheaded, sculptor Neil Simmons has found new customers making odd requests: ‘I now give people the option of the piece headless or with a head. There are two prices – with or without.’
Independent
In August 2003 Tony Blair overtook Clement Attlee as the longest continuously serving Labour prime minister. There were many fond stories about Clem, who had a reputation for modesty:
As Roy Hattersley reminds us: ‘To Clem Attlee spin was what you put on a cricket ball. He only agreed to have a telex machine at No.10 after he was told that he could get test match scores on it.’
Attlee penned this jingle about himself: ‘Few thought he was even a starter, There were many who thought themselves smarter, But he ended PM, CH and OM, An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.’
Churchill quipped: ‘He had much to be modest about.’ Keith Waterhouse’s column, Daily Mail
Lamenting the decline of such traditional British qualities as showing a stiff upper lip in the face of triumph or disaster, Leo McKinstry recalls how the modest former prime minister Clem Attlee and his wife drove themselves around the country during election campaigns – taking their own home-made sandwiches.
Daily Mail
Once, outside a polling station, Attlee was asked if he had a message for the British people.
‘No’ was his wonderfully honest reply – a contrast to the self-important spin of modern politicians.
Daily Mail
‘When he was prime minister, Jim Callaghan was guest of honour at a lunch in Blackpool. The waitress serving him tipped a leg of lamb with gravy into the lap of his immaculate suit. “Thank you, my dear,” said the PM. “But shouldn’t you have served Mrs Callaghan first?”’
Keith Waterhouse, Daily Mail
When Gladstone was busy saving loose women from the streets, Disraeli said: ‘I wish he’d save one for me.’
John Mortimer, Daily Mail
Tony Benn wanted to present his voluminous diaries to the British Library, but they could not afford to have them indexed. He applied to a charity for a grant to pay for his diaries to be available at the Library. ‘But you’re still alive,’ they objected.
Mr Benn told the Cheltenham Literary Festival: ‘I wasn’t prepared to make that sacrifice.’
Independent
A briefing note for US journalists covering President George W Bush’s visit to Australia tells them that in 1996 ‘a Liberal/National Party coalition came to power under Prime Minister John Major’.
Observer
Baroness Thatcher once told Douglas Hurd that she hadn’t thought much of the three people who stood for election as Tory leader after she had lost the job. She had forgotten that Hurd was himself one of them.
