Londoner's Diary: The Bullingdon club is bowing out
It’s the end of the road for the Bullingdon Club. Long before David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne took their seats of power in parliament, they were members of the mysterious, semi-secret drinking society at Oxford University. Now one former member says this will be its final year.
“RIP the Bullingdon Club, 1780-2017,” Harry Mount writes in this week’s Spectator. “It isn’t quite dead — but it is down to its last two members. That’s barely enough people to trash each other’s bedrooms, let alone a whole restaurant, as the Bullingdon was wont to do, according to legend.” It’s more than legend: members vandalised a 15th-century pub in 2004, smashing 17 bottles of wine, a window and, according to a BBC report, “every piece of crockery” during one of their dinners. Mount, David Cameron’s cousin and the new editor of The Oldie, was a member of the club from 1991 to 1993. He writes: “For more than a decade the Bullingdon exerted a totemic power so mighty that it spawned several conspiracy theories. One website... claims Bullingdon members are ‘in positions of power and influence throughout the world’.”
Indeed, aside from Cameron, Osborne and Johnson, Alan Clark, David Dimbleby and Earl Spencer were all members, as were John Profumo, Cecil Rhodes and both Edward VII and Edward VIII.Cameron may welcome the news with a sigh of relief. His association with the club — and the annual group portrait which was used by his detractors as a symbol of his elitism — is said to have been a source of huge embarrassment to the former Prime Minister. Although considering Dave’s post-referendum reputation, perhaps the club was more embarrassed by the association.
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Another familiar face at The Garrick Theatre yesterday, where hit political play This House is nearing the end of a successful run. Bill Cash, the Euroseptic MP, was at the matinee of the show yesterday. John Bercow and Jack Straw both saw it recently. A good reminder for our politicians that the world’s a stage and they are merely players.
The pictures are still big for Hillary
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille.” Last night Hillary Clinton received a standing ovation at the Palace Theatre on Broadway. But she wasn’t on stage: she was merely in the audience to see Sunset Boulevard, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical which had a run at London’s Coliseum in Covent Garden last year and earned Glenn Close an Evening Standard Theatre Award. Close stars as Norma Desmond, the reclusive, once-great actress who struggles to stay relevant as her fans fade and America changes around her. If the response from her fellow theatregoers is anything to go by, Hillary doesn’t have to worry about going in that direction. How long before Donald Trump calls it over-rated?
Terrible trouser travesty for Freddie Fox
A night at the theatre for the press view of a new run of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties at the Apollo. The play imagines a meeting between Lenin and James Joyce in 1917 Zurich. Nigella Lawson led the standing ovation. Actresses Clare Foster and Amy Morgan mingled at the 100 Wardour Street after-party, where producer Sonia Friedman discussed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Star Freddie Fox related a wardrobe malfunction two nights before in a shouting scene: “I split my trousers,” he said. “I had to face stage forward to hide it.” Only a small travesty.
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There was a feast for the eyes in Bermondsey last night for two exhibitions at Project Space. Peter Dench (no relation to Dame Judi) launched his book The Dench Dozen, while upstairs, Minnie Weisz showed her Time Present Time Future exhibit. The Londoner noted her resemblance to Rachel Weisz. “We’re sisters.” Have you ever name-dropped? “At the Spectre premiere after-party, the doorman wouldn’t let me in. I said quietly ‘I’m Rachel Weisz’s sister.’ He said ‘Yeah alright love.’”
Is Pamela feeling spooky?
This week Pamela Anderson was asked whether she was dating Julian, coyly replied, “I am seeing somebody.” Overnight, Julian Assange was on the radio explaining how much he admired her. “She’s whip-smart,” he said. “She’s no idiot at all.” Is this an amorous allegiance or something more interesting?
In 2015 Anderson met the Russian Presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov twice and requested a meeting with Vladimir Putin to discuss environmental issues. Since then she’s been a regular guest at Assange’s Ecuadorian Embassy bolthole. Assange denies it was the Russian government that gave him the information that became the Democrat Party emails. Has the all-American Pammy been flipped? “I love Russia,” Anderson has said. “Russians really get things done.”
Pammy’s number isn’t in our little black book so we settled for Coco de Mer, the lingerie brand for which she is the face. “Seriously?” they asked when we wondered if she was a new Mata Hari. “She’s back in LA so she’ll be asleep, but it sounds like nonsense.” OK, it’s a bit far-fetched...
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Tweet of day: “Father Christmas confirms that he is real. All suggestions to the contrary are fake news.” The Today programme’s Nick Robinson apologises this morning after claiming on-air that Father Christmas is pure fiction.
Queen Liz is a bit of an anorak
And the bride wore... North Face. Actress Elizabeth Hurley posted this from the set of her tongue-in-cheek show The Royals, where she and co-star Alexandra Park warmed up by covering their bridal gowns and diamonds between takes. “Tantrums and tiaras galore,” she added.
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Quote of the day: ‘We do not agree about what we disagree on’ The Bishop of Norwich, Graham James, at the General Synod’s debate on same-sex marriage yesterday. A rival to Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns?
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Cat of the day: Mayor Sadiq Khan has been urged to get a feline pet to deal with a mouse problem at City Hall. Suggested names so far include Whittington.
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