Gove's future revealed: Overindulgence and impulsiveness

Telegraph

21-02-2025

Mary Rees-Mogg – Jacob's 16-year-old daughter – used her Tarot cards to help former Cabinet minister Michael Gove predict his future on GB News' Chopper's Political Podcast. Gove's chosen cards told how his past had 'created something of lasting value', which is one way to describe 14 years of Tory government, while in the future he was warned to 'beware of overindulgence or impulsiveness to regain balance in your life'. Good advice now he is back in journalism.
Editors' dispute
There was little love lost between newspaper grandees Alan Rusbridger and James Harding when Harding defended his purchase of The Observer against criticism from Rusbridger on his Media Confidential podcast. 'You had looked at closing it,' Harding said to Rusbridger, an ex-editor in chief of The Guardian. 'Ooh – this is getting interesting,' chipped in podcast co-host and ex-FT editor Lionel Barber.
The conversation moved on. But a clearly stung Rusbridger admitted he had looked at replacing the 233-year-old Sunday paper with a Guardian on Sunday in 2009. Rusbridger later got his revenge, accusing Harding of nearly quitting his Tortoise website for CNN, saying: 'You were down to the last three.' Harding replied: 'I picked up the phone.'
Gentlemen, please!
Unpopular Nigel
Veteran actor Nigel Havers hates his first name and says no baby has been called it for at least five years.
Havers, 73, star of Chariots of Fire and Empire of the Sun, says: 'I hate the name Nigel. I think it's a silly name. And it's often parodied isn't it? Often in sketches the foolish sort of hooray is called Nigel.' He adds: 'More people were christened Lucifer than they were Nigel in the past few years. That's a fact.'
Is there a more unpopular Christian name?
Sex Pistol's wheelchair riot
An evening speaking engagement with former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon – aka 'Johnny Rotten' – in Leicester 'ended up with two women in wheelchairs fighting', the 69-year old says.
'Their husbands had their walking sticks and they were waving them about. It was bizarre. I thought 'How do you handle this one?' It was like a bingo riot. I found out it was all over their wheelchair space. I thought 'Life is full of surprises? Should I use that as a sign to give up and retire?' Then I thought 'No. I want the front row to be full of iron lungs next time.''
Wes 4 PM
Downing St photographers have found a novel way of getting Wes Streeting's attention when he comes out of the famous black door. 'Morning Prime Minister,' shouted one last week. The Health Secretary gave them a winning smile. I wonder why?
Ringo's memorabilia
Ringo Starr's son Zak – who turns 60 this year – never asks his 85-year-old father about what it was like to drum in The Beatles.
'The only information I get about The Beatles is when my dad volunteers it. I never ask. I have not seen [Peter Jackson's film] Get Back and I would like to watch it with him,' he tells me. 'I was saving up to watch it with him and he says: 'One, I was there. Two, I have seen it, and three, it is six hours long'.'
Ringo's common sense has never left him.
No Anglican Conclave
Following papal thriller Conclave's Bafta film success, Robert Harris, author of the original 2016 novel, rules out a book based on the present controversies engulfing the Church of England. 'It's not quite got the 'oomph', has it, of the Vatican?' Harris says. 'Lambeth Palace – very pleasant place. But it's not exactly like St Peter's Basilica.'
The closet Yodeller
After I reported how the Rev Richard Coles said his ambition was to be a yodeller, Lynne Nash, who is working on a new book called The Closet Yodeller, gets in touch with some tips. 'If you can find a break in your voice then it's a start. Yodelling involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the chest voice and the head voice,' she advises.
Nash – who yodels as Yodellynne – was a closet yodeller until she 'came out' in 2007 whilst gigging at an event where every one was very drunk. 'It went down well and I've been yodelling ever since,' she says. This could catch on.