Trimble stands by Cameron over 'needless' grammar row
Thursday, 31 May 2007
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* Having lost one frontbencher and alienated his predecessor over the grammar schools row, David Cameron will no doubt be pleased to hear that another big Tory Party beast with a grammar school past, Lord Trimble, has promised not to be troublesome.
Word has it in Westminster that the Nobel Peace Prize winner, an old boy of Northern Ireland's Bangor Grammar, who last month left the Ulster Unionists to join the Conservatives, is privately "unimpressed" at developments in his newly adopted party.
Yesterday, Trimble, above, spoke to Pandora and tacitly criticised Cameron's leadership, saying that the furore - which began after a clumsy speech, signed off by Cameron's office, by the shadow education secretary David Willetts - was a "needless, unnecessary argument".
Says Lord Trimble: "It's a shame for Graham Brady" (the shadow Europe minister who resigned after Cameron publicly admonished him). "But all these things have been said before.
"A full-scale return to grammar schools does not appear to be a realistic political position and state academies look promising. I'm also interested in some fairly rigorous streaming in our existing schools.
"Part of the problem with so many existing state schools is the problem with discipline and disruptive children and he [Cameron] is looking at that."
His own career has been defined by the decidedly more weighty troubles of Ulster; this no doubt seems small potatoes.
* Eleven hours after marrying children's party organiser Marina Hunt in Portugal last September, the television presenter Ben Fogle had his 200 wedding guests frantically scouring the bottom of a muddy lake, in which, while swimming, he had contrived to lose his ring.
I hear that Marina and her hapless husband, who memorably rowed naked (no chaffing) across the Atlantic with the Olympic oarsmen James Cracknell, have now put things right.
On Sunday the couple renewed their marriage vows in the Balearics, having travelled to Formentera for the sandy nuptials of the showbiz journalist Kiki King. The Fogles held their ceremony on a nudist beach - although they and their guests remained semi-clothed.
Says one: "Ben's vow was basically, 'I will not be a total pillock and swim in the sea wearing my new ring'."
* Critics of the genial Sunday morning sofa-owner Andrew Marr accuse him of being too soft - a harsh squawk given his pedigree.
Marr has burst free from his wet paper bag, with a damning analysis of G&T's Iraq experiment that may yet lead to "words" with his bosses at the supposedly impartial Beeb.
"As a BBC voice, I have to be careful what I say," Marr told an audience at the Hay Literary Festival, before adding: "What happened after the Iraq war was a political disaster. The number of deaths is ridiculous. If you add the total now on top of the number Saddam might have killed or had killed, well, it's just atrocious. We have the influence of Syria and Iran in the picture. That's not a good thing. I don't think Blair will recover from Iraq." Then later: "Oh God sorry, I can't have a personal view, I work for the BBC."
* Residents of Brent, north London, have been blessed with a surprise visit from the Keeper of the Eternal Smile, Hazel Blears. They witnessed the amusing spectacle of the wannabe-deputy prime minister being driven down their streets by a man with a megaphone, bellowing: "Hazel Blears, in your street for one day only!"
An eyewitness records the occasion: "There was hardly a stampede to get to her car. Maybe she should have stood up with her head through the sunroof. [She's 4ft 11.]
"There was a lot of leaning out of the car window and regal waving to the empty street. The only reaction was a bit of net curtain twitching." Politicians can't win.
Blears's spokesman explains that "there was a local by-election and Hazel was with Steve Pound [MP] campaigning for the local Labour candidate, rather than for the deputy leadership. He [Stevie-P, MC] was probably the one on the megaphone.
"And by the way, Hazel hasn't had botox."
* Earlier this month, the UK Independence Party's communication boss resigned, was fined £60 and ordered to pay £400 compensation after drunkenly harassing a Yugoslavian rail worker at 3am in Victoria station. Adrian Lithgow called the Eastern European "a piece of shit", asked, "Have you got a work permit?" and then launched a hot pasty at nearby staff.
I hear that just hours before, Lithgow was clinking glasses with none other than the gadfly Ukip leader Nigel Farage and his deputy David Campbell Bannerman. Fancy! Elephant-minded readers may recall how, in February, Farage was found in an "extremely weary" state in one of Strasbourg's Irish-themed watering holes.
Blurts Farage, who behaved himself during the evening with Lithgow: "We had a committee meeting and had dinner. It was nothing terribly substantial. He was fine when I left."
