Dog hopes David Miliband’s new employers, International Rescue Committee, don’t leave him stranded as they did when Labour overseas aid spokesman Ivan Lewis went to the Congo in Africa.
An IRC boat ferrying him across Lake Kivu, known as an ‘exploding lake’ owing to sporadic volcanic gases, conked out, leaving Lewis adrift in the jungle as night fell.
He had to be rescued by another boat.
Tony Blair's former spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, has been asking friends in high places when the long awaited Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War is to be published, Dog hears. Why so eager? Surely no one could criticise Campbell for his role in the bogus ‘45 minutes from doom’ dossier on Saddam’s weapons, the second ‘dodgy dossier’ crudely copied from out-of-date internet info or events prior to the death of MoD weapons expert Dr David Kelly? But maybe, just maybe, Chilcot will. If Campbell isn’t in a sweat, he should be. Tristram's elite touch with the 'precariat' Elite: Tristram Hunt
Unlike dogs and their masters, MPs do not always mirror their constituencies.
Take Stoke’s the Honourable Dr Tristram Julian Hunt MP.
The languid golden-locked, Labour lord’s son, TV lounge lizard and Cambridge-educated intellectual, left, is undoubtedly a member of the ‘elite’ top rank in a new guide to British classes.
Contrast that with the bottom rung, the ‘precariat’, harshly defined thus by one observer: ‘Lives in Stoke, did not go to university, works as cleaner or jobless, has little cash for luxuries.’
And is not called Tristram or Julian, let alone both.
Friends of ex MI6 boss Daphne Park have raised more than an eyebrow over a claim by Labour former union baron Lord Lea that shortly before her death in 2010 the baroness blurted out to him over a cup of tea that she had organised the Cold War assassination of Patrice Lumumba. He was the pro-Soviet President of what is now called the Congo. ‘Lea is the last person Daphne would share any secrets with,’ said one spook. ‘She regarded him as a bit of a windbag.’ Sir Gerald in the pinkVeteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, 82, was appropriately dressed to fend off the chill swirling around Westminster last week.
Peacock Kaufman sported a stylish camel coat and multi-coloured scarf, but was most proud of the livid pink woolly hat over his pixie ears.
‘I got it at a music and literary festival I attended in the Lofoten Islands recently,’ glowed Sir Gerald. Norway’s Lofoten Islands are in the Arctic.
Pugilistic MP Eric Joyce is squaring up to Paolo Di Canio, the new Sunderland FC manager who makes fascist salutes.
Joyce – arrested but not charged following an alleged Commons brawl last month – brands the footballer a ‘nutcase’ who would be scared to take him on.
Asked what would happen in a fight, Joyce replies: ‘He’d run away.’
As for the salutes, they are a sign that Di Canio is ‘worried about his masculinity,’ says Joyce, who adds for good measure: ‘And he’s thick.’
