Londoner’s Diary
Former PM-turned-author Theresa May sat down for lunch with the parliamentary press gallery yesterday. How she has lightened up since her grim years in No 10, which she now likens to a horror story. The stilted “Maybot” of old has given way to a wise-cracking grandee with a decent stand-up routine. Has she had a Chat GPT upgrade? “I am renowned for my small talk,” she self-deprecated. “When I was prime minister… you couldn’t wait for those few minutes with me in the press huddle, it was going to be a real set of jokes and a bundle of laughs and that’s what you’ve all come for today!
“Of course because I’ve written a book and have been signing books. I’ve been around quite a few bookshops recently and it’s interesting to notice where political titles are categorised, where they’re shelved in the bookshops,” she said. “Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West. Given Liz’s reputation and record, perhaps it should be Ten Days to Save the West,” cue laughter, “under sci-fi and fantasy.” Next it was the turn of the man who replaced her. “And then of course we’re all waiting for the memoirs from Boris Johnson which shall undoubtedly be shelved under current affairs.”
Dressed in one of her trademark power suits, the former PM laughed off wild online rumours she would defect to Labour. “You see strange things happening on social media. You will note that though I am wearing red, I am here and not in Essex [with Keir Starmer]. Yet I was trending as a potential defector!”
Leaning into the headmistress caricature, she ticked off one hack whose phone went off in the middle of her speech: “There’s always one”. And when asked to evaluate the performance of her successors as prime minister, May paused solemnly then cracked a smile: “Now let’s see, how many successors have I had?”
David, Donald and a delightful dinner
Dinner with Donald Trump is one of the rare privileges afforded to our Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, who was in America trying to schmooze the once, and possibly future, president last month. The Foreign Office has been quiet on the details of their tête-à-tête but George Osborne, Cameron’s former right-hand man, has the inside scoop for listeners to his Political Currency podcast. “David told me some of what happened at the Trump dinner. He says basically Trump has a speakerphone on the table and just throughout dinner people are calling — senators, congressmen, journalists, whatever — and throughout the dinner he just puts them on speakerphone and says ‘Hi! I’ve got Cameron here!’.” Sounds like a delightful evening.
Tumbleweed for Suella Braverman
Suella Braverman got the silent treatment from student protesters in Cambridge yesterday while on an Alan Partridge-style walkabout with GB News, which made for cringeworthy viewing. The sacked Home Sec was trying to start a fiery debate about Gaza, but protestors have adopted a zipped-lips approach. Would she have got a better reaction in the local pub?
