Gossip

Thursday

James Kirchick

This Town, by Mark Leibovich – review

Many books have been written about the corruption, venality and incestuousness that characterise Washington DC, but none has been as highly anticipated or amusing as This Town. Written by Mark Leibovich, the senior national correspondent for the New York Times magazine, it has been on the minds of Washington’s chattering classes for at least two years before its release. Sparking that interest was the revelation that a young, ambitious Capitol Hill press aide, whom Leibovich had been cultivating as a source, was secretly forwarding him emails that provided an insight into how Washington really works. That story was broken by Politico, the political web portal founded in 2007 that has

Roger Lewis

A Rogues’ Gallery, by Peter Lewis – review

Like Mel Brooks’s character the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, Peter Lewis has met everyone of consequence. Though he doesn’t mention being an eyewitness at the Crucifixion, he was told by T.S. Eliot that working in a bank was quite nice (‘I never thought about poetry in the day’). Frankie Howerd wanted Lewis to give him a massage (‘I have this trouble, a hernia, you see. Gives me a lot of discomfort’); Diana Dors confessed to him that she’d rather watch television than go to orgies (‘but I had to become a sex symbol on tiger rugs and in mink bikinis’); and Samuel Beckett made his excuses and fled (‘Sorry, I just

Thursday

Steerpike

Steerpike: The Lib Dems’ free school fight, Dignitas on Scotland, and more

Some politicians don’t read their own manifestos. And some don’t even read the names of their own parties. When it comes to academy schools, the Lib Dems are struggling to comprehend ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’. A Suffolk school earmarked for closure was rescued by campaigning parents who invited a commercial operator — International English Schools UK — to take over its administration. Rather than celebrate, Nick Clegg was hopping mad. He apparently regards the profit-making IES as blasphemers against his ideology. A few months ago IES leafleted homes in Twickenham and Teddington offering ‘a new choice of education from September 2014 when IES welcomes the first pupils to a brand new

Thursday

Angela Huth

The Hive, by Gill Hornby – review

Who would have thought that the idea for a novel about mothers at the school gate would spark a frenzied bidding for world  rights? Not a subject to make the heart race, surely, but race publishers did for a first novel by Gill Hornby, whose inspiration it was. Plainly she did her research at a school gate, and her acute ear has captured every nuance of the motherly buzz that will be universally recognised. Heavens, they’re a lively lot, and how they talk — all in a language that is particular to forty-something mothers. They share a vocabulary — keenos, newbie, yikes, oops.soz, bagsy, delish. The words ping off the

Thursday

Steerpike

Steerpike | 21 March 2013

Westminster’s top amateur prize-fighter, Eric Joyce, may face assault charges after his latest unscheduled bout in the House of Commons. The Falkirk MP had to be restrained last week after an alleged unseemly set-to at the Sports and Social Club. Ex-soldier Joyce first revealed his flair for pugilism in February 2012 when he ‘went berserk’ in the Strangers’ Bar after declaring it ‘full of fucking Tories’. ‘He won’t have that problem in the nick,’ says a Conservative friend. ‘It’s full of Lib Dems.’   Panic in Whitehall! Jeremy Hunt’s decision to dump health officials in hospital wards in order to give them ‘first-hand experience’ on the front-line has caused alarm among