09-05-2025
Nigel's fishy business
Nigel Farage has got his own reasons to hope that British fishermen get a good deal from quota negotiations with Brussels: he has bought a commercial fishing boat. He told me on GB News: 'I don't run it myself. I'm rather too busy. I have a skipper that runs that boat, and I'm not making any money on it. I can promise you, the rules and regulations put upon our small commercial fleet since Brexit are worse than they were as members of the European Union.'
Will Farage's fishing boat be a line in the negotiations over access to UK waters when Sir Keir Starmer and EU president Ursula von der Leyen sit down for talks in 10 days' time?
Nicolson vs York
A spiky exchange between Adam Nicolson, the grandson of Vita Sackville-West, and Peter York, author of The Sloane Ranger's Handbook, at this week's Oldie literary lunch. Nicolson – who has written a new book, Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood – told guests of an 'awkward experience' with York at the start of the lunch.
Nicolson said: 'I said I had written a book about birds and he said 'Hmm, All very good, I suppose, but I'm not interested in a book about nature'.' Nicolson added that he 'felt reproached by my friend', before explaining the prolific sex life of a wren. Afterwards, York tried to make light of 'a bit of sparring', but added: 'I'm here to represent the urban bourgeois point of view. Much as I love your work, Adam, I'm less interested in wrens than your book on the gentry which showed what it did to people back in the day, decapitation and ghastly things to your tummy.' Gentlemen, please!
Greg's special K
Happy Birthday to Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general and ITV breakfast television boss who turns 78 this month. Mystifyingly he has never been given a knighthood, unlike other BBC directors general. Boris Johnson tried his best, wrongly referring to him as 'Sir Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC' in his memoir Unleashed. Dyke tells me Johnson's surprise 'K' was news to him, adding: 'I've always assumed I'm on some blacklist for honours, not that I'm particularly bothered either way.' Johnson is sticking to his guns. 'I am surprised he doesn't have one,' he tells me. 'He certainly deserves it, if only for creating Roland Rat.'
Mitchell and Widdecombe
Students gathered at the Cambridge Union to debate the impact of Reform UK. The motion – 'Reform is the real Opposition' – was proposed by former Conservatives Ann Widdecombe and Marco Longhi, and opposed by ex-Tory Cabinet ministers Sir Andrew Mitchell and Sir Robert Buckland. Mitchell and Buckland won the debate and the biggest applause when Mitch explained that – while he had the good fortune to be educated at Cambridge, 'the greatest university in the world' – Widdecombe had made do with 'a second-rate university called Oxford'.
Never underestimate the cunning of a former chief whip.
Robbie's treasure
Pop star Robbie Williams says he has not sold out his summer tour yet. 'People ask, 'Are there any tickets left for your stadium tour this summer?' Well, there's a few left for the second night of the Emirates at the Arsenal,' he said as he launched his new art exhibition at Moco Museum, in Marble Arch, London. He added: 'Some may call me a national treasure. Well, I say, 'What point is there being a national treasure if you don't give some of that treasure away in the form of merchandise and affordable yet aspirationally priced drinks?.''
Perhaps unsurprisingly, his new exhibition is titled Radical Honesty.
Raising our caps to David Knowles
