TALK OF THE TOWN: Look away now, ladies! Johnny the 'hot equerry' is hitched
The King's aide and former senior bodyguard to Queen Elizabeth II quietly married Ms Lewis last Saturday at the quaint St Mary's Church in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire.
I'm told the couple kept the ceremony 'elegant' and 'low-key', and it was followed by a lunch and reception at Olivia's parents' nearby house.
They have avoided the spotlight, and Colonel Thompson stepped away from his public-facing role last year after reportedly disliking all the attention he was receiving.
He first entered the limelight in 2022 for his role in royal public events following the late Queen's death, and was nicknamed the 'hot equerry' after videos of him went viral online.
But the hopes of many young women were swiftly dashed when they learned that the hunky colonel was a married man – to a marketing manager called Caroline, whom he wed in 2010.
Then, almost as soon as it became known that he had quietly separated from his first wife, it was revealed that he had found love again, with PR executive Olivia. They announced their engagement in 2024.
Colonel Thompson has regularly accompanied King Charles and joined the Royal Family on Christmas Day last year.
I understand the King was invited to the wedding and had no engagements to fulfil last weekend, according to the Court Circular.
Intriguingly, the King and Queen were in Canada last week – with none other than the newly married colonel. Could His Majesty have attended the wedding in secret and then travelled to Canada with Thompson in tow?
Pippa's plan put out to pasture
Tough times at Bucklebury Farm. I hear the 72-acre Berkshire estate owned by The Princess of Wales's sister Pippa Matthews and her hedge-fund manager husband James is £807,543 in debt.
The couple submitted plans to build a nursery on the farm, which features a petting zoo beloved by Prince George, to save it from financial ruin, but the idea was slammed by the local authority.
The farm has faced yearly six-figure losses since James bought it for £1.3 million in 2021. Time to sell up?
The spy who loved... Meg?
They've been condemned as outdated sexist stereotypes... but that doesn't stop actress Meg Bellamy from wanting to be a Bond girl. 'Oh God, sure, I will take that!' said the 22-year-old, who is best known for playing a young Kate Middleton in The Crown.
Failing that, she also fancies a role in a Tom Cruise film. 'I loved Mission: Impossible,' she swooned when I ran into her at DJ Pete Tong's gig at London's Royal Albert Hall.
Tigerlily's had her claws clipped
Tigerlily Taylor, daughter of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, had some damage control to do last week after a promotional post for her nail brand Claws By Tiger Taylor backfired.
The 30-year-old shared a video online showing French First Lady Brigitte Macron appearing to slap her husband – an AI version of the real event.
In Tigerlily's film, Brigitte's hands are sporting her brand's signature red press-on nails. 'Not in the best taste,' sniffed one follower.
'Not very ethical,' wrote another. Tigerlily, right, initially responded in the comments, then the post vanished.
Talk about clawing it back from the brink...
David Hockney is to the art world what Mick Jagger is to rock music – a legend who gets away with breaking the rules.
I'm told the National Gallery will open after hours for the painter – 'even if it's Sunday 8pm,' an insider at a private view told me last week.
And if Hockney, 87, a committed smoker, wants to puff inside, staffers will turn a blind eye – but not on this occasion. 'He chose to smoke outside before coming in,' the insider said.
Prince Harry's ex Cressida Bonas and her husband, Harry Wentworth-Stanley announced in January they are expecting a second child – and now I hear they've bought a palatial house for their growing family.
After selling their Notting Hill flat, the couple have splashed out on a five-bedroom home for £1.75 million. Cressida, 37, right, and Harry, 36, are technically staying in West London... however in the rather less aristocratic neighbourhood of Acton.
SPOTTED
◆ My spies saw Paul Mescal and Gracie Abrams drinking at a trendy bar 'with no name' in Islington and dining at Towpath in De Beauvoir Crescent.
◆ Liz Hurley and Billy Ray Cyrus returning from Rome on BA and not holding back on PDA. Love is in the air!
◆ Dua Lipa and her fiance frolicking on Hampstead Heath and feeding their sandwich to a stranger's dog.
◆ Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Gina Coladangelo browsing at a car boot sale in Chiswick.
◆ The Gentlemen cast, Theo James and Vinnie Jones, filming Guy Ritchie's TV show outside Conde Nast HQ.
◆ Outnumbered stars Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner out in Muswell Hill.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Inside the special relationship between JD Vance and ‘bosh' king Tom Skinner
He made a name for himself peddling pillows with all the gusto of a modern-day Del Boy: the 'absolute guv'nor' of 'graft' who belts out 'Bosh!' like a battle cry and has somehow made the way he pours gravy a key element of his persona. This is Thomas, or Tom Skinner, or 'The Original Bosh' as he calls himself, a Very British Businessman who found fame on The Apprentice – and just a few years later, improbably (or not, as it may be) finds himself sharing beers with the vice-president of the United States, and at the centre of a burgeoning class culture war. This week, 34-year-old Skinner is facing a wave of criticism over that meeting and his latest career turn. The circulating image of the latter created somewhat of a storm – Skinner, wearing a suit and his famous grin, leaning over a much more casually attired JD Vance, both awkwardly giving a thumbs up. Writing on social media, Skinner said: 'When the vice president of the USA invites ya for a BBQ [and] beers, you say yes. Unreal night with JD and his friends n family. He was a proper gent. Lots of laughs and some fantastic food. A brilliant night, one to tell the grandkids about, mate. Bosh.' Within hours, the photo of the unlikely diplomatic exchange was ricocheting across social media, accumulating tens of thousands of likes. The meeting – at a 'booze-fuelled' summer barbecue in the Cotswolds – took place during Vance's English holiday, in the same week he met Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for breakfast. The pair bonded in recent weeks after Vance sent him a supportive meme on X and their online friendship culminated in the invitation to the event with the vice-president. The question is, why would Donald Trump's right-hand man have any interest in being seen with Skinner, a perennially tanned, former market trader from Romford, Essex? For the same reason that the BBC announced him as an upcoming contestant on this year's Strictly Come Dancing. Since he made a big impression on viewers of The Apprentice in 2019, Skinner has traded on his 'man of the people', plain-talking, working-class image and, unsurprisingly, it's made him extremely popular. For the right, it has been political gold dust. Skinner is the supposed embodiment of the ordinary British families – no airs, no graces, just so-called authenticity and greasy fry-ups. His relatability has amassed him more than 700,000 followers on Instagram, just over half a million on TikTok and a similar figure on X. Across his platforms, you'll find him posing with 'proper English grub' like pies at the pub or toad in the hole, which he pours gravy over, making sure not to look at the plate as he does so – a trademark of his, albeit quite a baffling one. His pride and joy is his Ford Transit van; his brand, a nostalgic celebration of British culture, family, land, and hard graft, pitched as the mirror image of 'ordinary working voters'. Except, 'ordinary working voter', in 2025, has shifted significantly in meaning – and so now, apparently, has Skinner's politics. His brand draws heavily on a certain kind of working-class masculinity: entrepreneurial, salt-of-the-earth, no-nonsense, 'honest' people 'left behind' by modern Britain. The sort of people who hate being told what to do, especially by middle-class politicians they can't relate to. 'We need leadership that understands the streets, the markets, the working class,' he wrote recently on X, in a post that caught the eye of those noting his recent, subtle shift. 'People like me.' However, despite his white-man-van persona, Skinner attended the prestigious Brentwood School, which carries day fees of £29,112 per year, or boarding fees of £56,358 on a sports scholarship and grew up in relative affluence in a house worth more than £2.5m. His father, Lee, was a 'mega-rich marketing boss and businessman who was once able to have a garage full of Lamborghinis' (before being bankrupted over his role in a suspected investment fraud). This part of Skinner's life, however, doesn't fit into a carefully crafted rags-to-riches narrative. According to readers, his book, Graft: How to Smash Life, glossed over much of his childhood. So how authentic is the 'hard-working' hero his marketing suggests? Certainly, cosplaying in a working-class identity is hardly new nor rare, particularly on the political right, but rather a strategic decision. From financier Nigel Farage's well-worn pub pint pics to trust-fund Trump's blue-collar bravado, the trick is more than familiar: adopt the aesthetics and language of a class you do not belong to, then trade on the credibility and, particularly when it comes to working classness, the protection from criticism that it grants you. For Skinner – who openly showed support for Donald Trump last year and has said he'd like to run for mayor of London – the point is that the spin he's put on his background offers hope, or some sort of proof that happiness and success can come from true grit alone if you just have the right attitude, no matter how much society shows you that simply isn't the case. The Conservative Party, following Reform UK's lead, have taken the idea very seriously. And it's Tory MPs who have acted as Skinner's gateway to his latest association in US politics. Vance was not Skinner's first political collaboration – that was with shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick. The politician, who also had his meeting with Vance this week, once filmed a pretty excruciating video with Skinner in which he claimed that 'tool theft' among tradesmen was high on his political agenda. They were reportedly introduced by James Orr, associate professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge – the man who spotted Skinner's potential to 'speak human', as he puts it. 'I guess the way I look at it is kind of in the same way organisations have secret agents,' says Dr Mikey Biddlestone, of the University of Kent. 'Where they pinpoint and target the nerdy scientist who's the perfect person to groom into helping with their mission. 'They're hijacking this brand that already exists to be a mouthpiece for the content that they want to spread, to the demographic they want to reach.' Agreements with influencers are valuable, according to Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, because of a 'fantasy industrial complex', an imaginary world, or closed loop between politicians, influencers and audiences in which reality is less important than emotional recognition (or facts, Biddlestone adds). The mechanics are simple: Skinner's cheerful posts and 'everyman' appeal draw eyeballs; the algorithm rewards the content with further reach; the association between the two men and, crucially, what they stand for, quietly settles into the minds of their shared audience. And yet not a single policy point has been uttered publicly between them. The danger lies in what comes next or, as Biddlestone describes, the likely 'mission creep' that ensues in partnerships like this one. 'Like an insidious push towards an extreme idea,' he explains, 'where you introduce very small amounts of changes in perspective or messaging. And then it's a bit like that frog in boiling water analogy – before you know it, you've been nudged into an extremist right-wing perspective.' And who's going to argue with the guy who got famous simply by saying that hard work and family values matter? Skinner might have avoided being overtly political so far, but he's certainly at least right-wing coded. More worryingly, he's also one carefully selected mouthpiece in a much broader trend of political actors talking to influencers they see as being able to 'play' the working class for power. He might insist he's only interested in a hard day's graft and having a laugh, but already he's making very big political statements. The question is not just what Skinner will do with that, but how others might benefit from it. Bosh.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Lord Kinnock urges Labour to scrap two-child benefit cap with ‘Robin Hood economics'
Labour must scrap the two-child cap on benefits to lift children out of poverty, the party's former leader Neil Kinnock has said. Rising levels of poverty 'would make Charles Dickens furious', Lord Kinnock said in an interview with the Sunday Mirror, in which he urged ministers to introduce a wealth tax. Lord Kinnock, who led Labour in opposition between 1983 and 1992, is the latest senior party figure to pressure the current government to end the two-child limit on benefits. Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown recently said ending the two-child limit, as well as the benefit cap, would be among the most effective ways of reducing child poverty. Lord Kinnock acknowledged the government may not be able to scrap the two-child cap 'all at once'. He added: 'But I really want them to move in that direction because the figures are that if that did occur it would mean that about 600,000 kids fewer are in poverty.' Lord Kinnock suggested such a move could be funded by a wealth tax on the 'top 1 per cent'. 'I know it's the economics of Robin Hood, but I don't think there is anything terribly bad about that,' he said. He warned that over the decade and a half the Conservatives were in power child poverty gradually rose. The Labour peer said: 'In 15 years, starting from a position where beneficial change was taking place, we've got to the place that would make Charles Dickens furious. 'It's been allowed to happen because the kids are voiceless and their parents feel powerless. I defy anybody to see a child in need and not want to help.' The two-child limit has been long-criticised by Labour backbenchers as a driver of child poverty. Ministers are expected to set out plans to tackle child poverty at the budget in the autumn.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Beyond the Rave: How Gen X is saving clubland (and showing their kids what they're missing)
It was four in the afternoon, I walked into the club and actually felt a wave of euphoria wash over me with the lasers going and the music pumping and feeling the bass going through me,' James Davis, 54, recalls his first steps back into partying at Nineties club Strawberry Sundae's reunion event in 2023. 'Seeing everyone with their hands in the air, I was like, OK, this is great.' Davis has a critical eye. He used to be out four nights a week as Ministry magazine's club editor in the 19Nineties, then found himself deep in corporate life for companies like Vodafone and Samsung before heading out to Ibiza to run wellness retreats. After moving back to London post-Covid, he discovered all the old names – and all the old clubbers – were back. 'I know people who are really senior lawyers at big law firms, but secretly they go raving as well,' he explains. 'It's not even about reminding us of our youth, it's being back in that inclusive, happy culture. 'That's something that's missing in the modern world. Social media is very divisive and fracturing, but being in a real-life environment that's all about coming together, there's something very attractive about that to people.' Davis's experience is backed up by the reels on TikTok and Instagram showing archive footage from clubbing days when no one had phones and everyone was in it for the good time. And new research from Liverpool University shows that clubbers in their forties and fifties make up a significant part of the city's underground club culture. Sometimes the majority of those at underground events are now over forties. Liverpool's Richard Anderson, author of the Persistence of the Underground in Dance Music Scenes, researched clubs that were, he says, trying to create evenings where people could lose their inhibitions and be friendly in an unfriendly society. He was surprised to find how many of those who attended were Generation X. 'These clubbers have a limited aspiration to grow and become the biggest thing ever,' he explains. 'The intention is just having the best night, not to necessarily see the biggest name DJ. It could just be someone who's going to play the music that they like, whether that's music made 35 years ago, or 35 months ago, it really doesn't really matter.' Anderson's research covered businesses that weren't aimed at older clubbers specifically and he found dancefloors were happily mixed with younger and older clubbers alike. It's an experience borne out by some dedicated Generation Z clubbers too, who will happily share a space with clubbers their parents' age. 'In mainstream clubs like Academy in Leeds, you've got people in their twenties who are going more to hit on people than for the music, so you just get young clubbers,' says Leeds-based designer Tess Gladwell. 'But if you go somewhere more underground like Beaver Works or the White Hotel in Manchester, where they have good house, techno or jungle club nights there's a wider age range. People are going for the music, and the community not to snog some random.' open image in gallery Partygoers at a event ( Phil Marks ) A survey by Eventbrite in 2019 found that 3.7 million Britons over 45 went clubbing once a week. One promoter Phil Marks guesses that number has increased significantly since then. Marks, 57, worked in recruitment for 30 years, then sold his consultancy at the beginning of 2023. After years sitting at a desk, he looked around for a day rave to go to, couldn't find anything he liked, so he launched a one-off in July 2023 called 'It's like Studio 54 but we're open from 3pm to 8pm,' he explains – at a pub in Kings Cross. 'I thought I'd sell 20 tickets to some mates, but I sold 150 and filled the place up,' he recalls. His second party, at the Roxy in Soho, sold 350 tickets and last year he ran 40 parties across London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol at an average of 400 punters per party and he says the competition has exploded in the past two years. 'When I started in London, I was selling out maybe four parties ahead, but suddenly there are 15 club nights aimed at older clubbers in London alone and if you go to any major UK city, you will have between three and seven companies doing something similar.' isn't an underground event, he stresses, its Eighties and Nineties club classics but he knows people who've attended one of his events as a kind of gateway club and are now back clubbing all the time. 'The venues are happy to see us,' he explains, 'Youngsters don't drink anymore, so the clubs can't make any money. There were 36,000 clubs in the UK in the Eighties, and now there are fewer than 1,000. open image in gallery Fatboy Slim performing at a concert at Alexandra Palace in 2023 ( Getty ) 'One owner told me footfall is down 70 per cent and they end up having to do student nights with shots for a pound, so they're lucky to make £5 per head, but with our clubbers they do £25 a head easily.' The legendary DJ Fat Tony, who started out in the Eighties and has played clubs around the world, began his own day parties at the end of lockdown, DJing Saturday afternoons in a shop in Notting Hill Gate. His Full Fat day raves have been going for five years this summer, attracting 2,500 Gen Xers who come at midday, leave at 6pm and get home in time to put their kids to bed, as he puts it. 'I think that the demographics in clubbing have changed so dramatically because Generation Z choose not to drink, and pubs and bars and nightclubs are opening up to that older generation just to stay open,' he explains. 'Then they're thinking, 'Okay, we're not going to be judged anymore when we go out. We're not going to be looked at like we're the old age pensioners in the club.' When their children grow up, the nice parents from that culture want to take their kids out raving, and, dare I say it, give their children their first pill. That's rave culture. That's what they grew up on. I see it all the time.' The demand from older clubbers has been matched by the return of Nineties club nights like Peaches, God's Kitchen and Clockwork Orange. The latter was something of a pioneer in this, says Danny Gould, aka Danny Clockwork. The club started holding events in 2014 after years of silence following Gould quitting to get sober in 2001. 'I had years of drug-fuelled lunacy, until my brain just went – you have to stop,' he explains. 'When we reopened in Print Works, we sold 6,000 tickets in 20 minutes, finishing at 9pm and I'm in bed by 10pm. I'd say it's two-thirds an older crowd and a bunch of twentysomethings. open image in gallery Oasis crowds have been marked for the Nineties dads and lads vibe during their 2025 tour ( Getty ) 'Older clubbers have had jobs, lost jobs, their parents have died, their kids have grown up. They've got nothing to prove anymore, so everyone's respectful and just enjoying themselves. I think that's why the youngsters come – the positivity and the safety.' For Anderson, 'this is, in itself, explicitly political in that even if you're not thinking about it as a critique of modern society consciously, somebody said that the first time they went into a club, they couldn't believe everyone was nice, and they'd never experienced that before. It's a desire for tolerance.' We live in complex times, the UK is on its knees in so many ways, so it feels right to have a boom in dance music and dance culture – a place where you can just, for a few hours, forget about everything. And of course, this chimes with the Gen X way. 'We think of the Sixties as free love and psychedelics, but the majority of that generation were brought up in post-war austerity and were very sensible and got a job, stayed at the same company until they retired, and then got their pension,' says Davis. 'But Gen-Xers had that explosion of acid house music in the Eighties and Nineties and that gave us that inclusive, happy culture. Maybe that's something that's missing in the modern world. 'Social media is very divisive and very fracturing, but being in a real-life environment that's inclusive and all about coming together, I think there's something very attractive about that.' Marks has already opened a night in Amsterdam and had an Australian friend franchise in Brisbane. Clockwork Orange holds nights in Thailand, Dubai, Ibiza, 'and we're doing parties all over the world again,' says Gould. Even New York is succumbing. Jared Skolnick went to a few raves in Florida in the Nineties but then moved to the Big Apple and worked in tech marketing for years. In 2015, his spin class was promoting a festival where the Chemical Brothers played, and he rediscovered his taste for UK dance music. His next club night was Above & Beyond, the UK electro trio. 'This was one week before Donald Trump's 2016 election, so there was a lot of tension around politics,' he explains. 'The event was spiritual in a way I didn't expect. They put messages up on a screen, like – if you love someone, tell them now. And during this politically rife time, one of the messages was, 'look around you. You are also colourful.' I had this moment realising that we might have completely different beliefs, but right now we're all sharing something.' He now works clubs and festivals in harm reduction – testing drugs for the presence of fentanyl and helping people with bad trips. When I ask him why he thinks older clubbers on both sides of the pond are back clubbing like they were 30 years ago, he thinks for a second. 'In the US, Gen X is called the lost generation and I think these events are what we need to not be lost,' he gives a slow, sad smile. 'It's the idea that I feel like I belong somewhere. I think our generation, for a very long time, never felt like it belonged anywhere. Now I've found my place.' * Clockwork Orange is at the Steelyard, London, 6 September. See for details; Fat * Tony's Full Fat Season 9 starts at the Anthologist, London from 13 September. See for details; is at Popworld, Bristol on 27 September and touring through the winter. See for details
