Future leaders of Asian states just want to have fun

News arrives that the Oxford Union Society is indulging in its second favourite pastime (after binge drinking): gossip. Bilawal Bhutto, the 20-year-old son of the late Benazir, is said to be planning to run for treasurer in the student elections next week. His mother was, of course, the first Asian female president of the society in 1976.

“The fact his mother was president is certainly a factor,” a student mole reports. “Bilawal, who’s in his second year reading history at Christ Church, wants to emulate her and there’s a sense of a dynasty. They say his father wanted him to run when he first came to Oxford, but he’s always said he’s going on to do serious work later in life, so he might as well enjoy himself first.”

And what does Bhutto himself say? When cornered at a student party, he offered an enigmatic “Maybe.” Apparently he is wary about the society’s reputation for being brutal and bitchy. If he is hoping to follow in his Mum’s footsteps and become prime minister of Pakistan, you’d think dealing with a few braying undergraduates would be a doddle.

The Iron Lady still sorts the men from the boys

Word was that David Cameron hadn’t been invited to this week’s unveiling of a £100,000 portrait of Margaret Thatcher commissioned by Gordon Brown for Downing Street. In the end, Dave’s office tells me, he managed to wangle an invitation. It’s not the only new likeness of the lady in town, either. Marcus Harvey, the artist responsible for the portrait of Myra Hindley fashioned from children’s handprints, has now immortalised Thatcher using “painted sex toys”. The work is “about the testosterone she surrounded herself with”, Harvey told an interviewer. “She was literally surrounded by cocks.” He was not referring to Gordon’s do.

+ As if the children of Britain weren’t mollycoddled enough, the largest youth football league in Lincolnshire now wants to force referees to end matches if they are too one-sided, as at some US schools. If a nine-goal gap opens up, games will be halted and the teams mixed up to even things out.

Yes, minister, we sell a drink called beer

Let’s raise a glass to Alan Campbell, the Home Office minister behind the government’s spectacularly unpopular proposals for pubs. New laws could include reducing the size of drinks and doing away with price-cutting deals. When did he last visit an old-fashioned boozer? “I am trying to think of the last time that I was in a pub,” he admitted during a Q&A with furious publicans. “It is probably easier for MPs not to go into pubs because we have work to do when we go in there. I do not mean bar work,” he added. Don’t speak too soon, Al. You may need your serving skills after the next election.

+ The mouthy Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Theo Paphitis, who lost his bid to buy Woolworths last year, told 200 up-and-coming professional businessmen at a reception that they were “very lucky” to be living through a recession. Cue scattered applause. It seems asset strippers are almost as popular as bankers.

Britpop could give the civil service a brand new beat

Charles Aznavour, the 84-year-old crooner, has been appointed Armenia’s ambassador to Switzerland. He’s currently in the Swiss - and every other continental country’s - Top 10 with his latest album. Perhaps it’s time we put our own pop stars to work in the diplomatic corps. Duffy could be useful, singing Mercy to the thin-lipped Brussels bureaucrats. We could dispatch Lily Allen, who sings Everyone’s At It on her new CD, to Holland to head up a comparative drug policy review. For Coldplay - it’s got to be outer Mongolia.

Good news for the beleaguered housing market. Augusto Pinochet’s former UK residence in Surrey (where the late Chilean dictator lived in exile between 1999 and 2000) has just come onto the rental market. Now you, too, can live like a despot, for the paltry sum of £5,500 a month. So what do you get for your money? The estate agent boasts that Savannah is “set in an acre of beautiful grounds”, so there’s room aplenty should you need half a dozen policemen to protect you. Though I’m not sure about the “numerous improvements” at this neo-gingerbread eyesore, which include some very MFI-style furniture. Less lifestyles of the rich and famous than of the kitsch ignoramus.

Alas, poor Prudence. Gordon Brown - who earned the nickname for his beady-eyed skills as chancellor (no laughing at the back) - could be the latest victim of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Though the PM isn’t in such deep water as Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, expect blushes this Tuesday, when the standards and privileges committee may look into whether he properly declared a £1,600 fee for subletting his constituency office. “This is embarrassing for the prime minister,” says an insider. “I would expect Gordon to get a stern ticking-off at the least.” Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that one.

LITTLE BRITAIN
Hardly a typical student, he owns a string of racehorses and is the nephew of Manchester City’s multi-billionaire owner. Sheikh Hazza bin Sultan al-Nahyan, 26, has just gained a PhD at Bangor University. He went to Bangor for “the friendly atmosphere”, said the heir – and presumably not because it is “the second-cheapest place to live in the UK”. - South Wales Echo

Police in Brighton have been told to clean up their act in a campaign dubbed Grimewatch by station wags. The kitchen at the police station in John Street has been plagued by rubbish and dirty crockery, leading a local MP to joke: “This gives a new meaning to the phrase ‘the filth’.” Plans are afoot to install CCTV to catch the detergent-dodgers. - The Argus (Brighton)

Birmingham city council has refused to accept a supermarket trolley holding almost half a ton of pennies as payment for a £1,300 debt. The trolley was delivered to trading standards offices by Gary Southall, 48, a wheel-clamper, who owes the council for legal costs. “We are going to reject it on the basis that they are not legal tender,” an official said. Someone ought to tell the Bank of England. - Birmingham Mail

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