public and refused to give interviews, saying: ‘It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.’ Daily Mail
When asked how he liked to relax the millionaire industrialist Sir Denis said: ‘When I am not pissed, I like to play a lot of golf.’ Independent
The received wisdom now is that he was far from being a gin-soaked old bigot … but, as he once put it to his wife when she queried his request for a stiff drink on a morning flight to Scotland: ‘My dear, it is never too early for a gin and tonic.’ Simon Hoggart, Guardian
Margaret was seen going out to buy bacon for Denis and a permanent secretary said there were plenty of people who would be glad to do that for her. ‘No, the bacon had to be just as he liked it, and only she knew what he liked.’ W F Deedes, the ‘Dear Bill’ of Private Eye’s famous satire, in a tribute to his close friend. Daily Telegraph
Tony Blair wanted MP Ronnie Campbell’s opinion of a speech he was going to make. The speech was e-mailed by mistake to a hairdresser with the same name. Crimper Campbell replied: ‘It’s very good. Just go ahead with it.’
Independent
In a survey which asked people to choose which characters best represented loyalty, Winston Churchill beat the Queen to the top spot. Tony Blair scored less highly than Lassie, Jess (Postman Pat’s cat), Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.
The Times
For his State visit to Britain US President George W Bush brought along 250 Secret Service men, 150 National Security Department advisers, 200 government representatives, 50 political aides, 100 journalists, his personal chef, four cooks, a 15-strong sniffer-dog team and his armoured limousines.
Daily Telegraph
Former foreign secretary Robin Cook has a stuffed stoat on his desk at the House of Commons. Apparently he has moved it around from desk to desk for years. The stoat has startled many visitors who, at first, think it is alive.
The Times
Health minister Lord Warner said that 900,000 people were on incapacity benefit because they were clinically obese, costing the taxpayer £70,965,00. The real figures were 900 fatties costing £70,965. His department apologised for an administrative error.
Daily Telegraph
The Ministry of Defence spent more than £600m settling compensation claims in 2003. Some of it was paid out on a parrot that was startled by a jet fighter. The bird fell off its perch, broke both legs and the claim included a vet’s bill for supplying two splints. Fifty-one thousand pounds went to six people who fell out of bed.
Soldier Magazine
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has a furry gonk dangling from the computer in his office. On his desk there is a biscuit tin that calls out ‘Keep away from the cookie jar’ when opened. The Sunday Times’ comment: ‘You don’t have to be mad to work there, but it clearly helps.’
During the row about checks on asylum seekers being too lax, opposition leader Michael Howard raised a laugh by saying that one of the tens of thousands of immigrants waved through was a one-legged Bulgarian who claimed to be coming to Britain to work as a roof tiler.
Sun
Paul Goggins, Labour MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East and junior minister with responsibility for prisons, seemed doomed to live out his political life in the shadows. But during a radio interview it was not prison policies that excited listeners. It was the minister’s name. Was it possible that he had anything to do with the great Mrs Goggins, who runs the village post office in Postman Pat? Sure enough. Author John Cunliffe was a friend of Goggins’ uncle Edmund and borrowed the family name. As the Daily Telegraph said in a learned leader on 26 January 2004: ‘Hoons and Hains may come and go. But Mr Goggins’s fame will live for ever.’
Fears that Blackpool may fail to attract future party political conferences sparked a mixture of emotions. In a longish list of things he will miss, Simon Hoggart wrote in the Guardian of the friendliness of the resort, its sensible and convenient trams and sole Veronique and lobster thermidor served with tea and bread and butter.
His ‘Won’t Miss’ list included its soggy fish and chips and beef sandwiches he described as hot gristle in a bun. He also wished that Yates’s Wine Lodge still served champagne on draft even though ‘it tasted like sparkling battery acid’.
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