Labour’s top brass hope they’ll shine at auction

A last chance to rescue Labour’s finances tonight when the top brass offer themselves up for auction at a glittering sports dinner at Wembley Stadium.

Bidders will have a chance to be waited on hand and foot by former ship steward John Prescott in a private box at the Rugby League Cup Final. Tony Blair will play tennis with the highest bidder (isn’t that how they got into the whole donations mess?). Alastair Campbell is offering literary immortality: “You can bid to be a character in my first novel,” he tells us at the launch of June Sarpong’s politicsandthecity website. “It’s not as popular as lunch with Sir Alex Ferguson but I’ve already had five-figure bids.” The book, All in the Mind, is the story of a psychiatrist, his patients and family, and has nothing to do with new Labour. The winner could appear in a hospital ward, Campbell suggests.

What if Blair bid to be a fictional character in a narrative dreamt up by Campbell? “No, that wouldn’t work.” Indeed, why repeat yourself.

Waste not, want not is Gordon’s new mantra. So how much did the Government spend on aborted plans to buy two private jets to ferry Gordon Brown and the Royal Family around the world? £1.25million, according to an answer procured by Julian Brazier, Shadow Transport Minister. Cheaper to hire a private 767 jet to get to the “green” G8 summit, at an estimated £500,000.

The legend of Alexander Obolensky, one of Russia’s few stars with the oval ball, has touched Roman Abramovich. The Chelsea owner has brought out that chequebook again to help to fund a memorial in Ipswich for the “flying prince”, who became an English rugby star and a Second World War RAF hero. Prince Obolensky fled revolutionary Russia. Maybe Roman has some sympathy.

Postscript

Gary Oldman, whose film roles used to be creepy but brilliant (think of Leon) are now a bit tame (Harry Potter.) Has it got to do with the recovering alcoholic now being teetotal? “If the work has suffered, then so be it . . . Oliver Stone thinks I’ve lost my edge,” Oldman tells Total Film magazine. “But then I’ve looked at the last couple of things he’s done and I could perhaps say the same thing to him.” Fair point.

Marianne Faithfull claims she was the first choice to sing with Serge Gainsbourg in the sultry 1968 pop hit Je t’aime. . . she turned it down because she feared that it would make Mick Jagger, then her boyfriend, a little jealous.

Father Ted creator Graham Linehan thinks British comedy relies too much on swearing. BBC Three is “the kind of TV where your dad has to leave the room every ten minutes because he is too embarrassed to watch,” he told The Stage. BBC Three told him to “f*** off”. Not really.

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