Hain’s dancefloor denial

Last month we brought you news of Peter Hain’s interior decor at his home in Neath. Remember? Ever attuned to the sentiments of the Labour faithful, the deputy leadership hopeful had given an interview to Aga magazine in which intriguing mention was made of a dancefloor.

Alas, in a interview with BBC Online, the Secretary of State for Various Places dismisses this as “just some of the media crap you have to put up with”. As David, Cornock, of the BBC, rightly notes: “Those foot-in-the-door tabloid hacks on Agamagazine have a lot to answer for.”

Leonard Cohen appeared on a British stage on Monday night for the first time in 15 years. Cohen, a man so morose that he makes Morrissey look like Ant or Dec, was at the Cuckoo Club in London, to help to promote an album by Anjani, his co-writer.

“I asked what kind of audience it was,” he rasped at the assembled bigwigs. “I was told industry. I immediately thought of Night of the Living Dead .” That’s right Leonard. Sweeten them up.

As David Cameron boomerangs over casinos, we at People are even more surprised than most. A quick check of the archives, you see, informs us that it was one David Cameron who bravely spearheaded the movement to allow riverboat casinos in Warren County, Mississippi, in 1992. A quite different David Cameron, admittedly, but a David Cameron nonetheless.

Yet more, thrillingly, on the Labour deputy leadership. Hazel Blears, who seems to want the job so much that it is almost (but not quite) endearing, has been e-mailing almost everybody – including the staff of Tory MPs. Although her latest bubbly missive does talk of “taking the fight to Cameron’s Conservatives”, this is not, probably, quite what she means.

Estate agents Christie & Co have let it be known that The Crescent Inn, a pub that they are selling in Salford, Greater Manchester, was a favoured drinking hole of Marx and Engels. “It’s all hearsay,” shrugs one of their agents, when we call for more info. Oh.

News reaches us of a constituency meeting held last week by the Santa-esque Frank Dobson (People’s own MP), ostensibly to discuss whom he should support for the Labour deputy leadership.

Our spies say that, after praising Jon Cruddas for half an hour, Dobbo was asked what he thought of Hilary Benn. “I think he is going to win,” he replied, reasonably. “But I’m backing Cruddas.” Inspirational.

“ We Will Rock You had a real satirical edge to it,” Ben Elton tells Radio Times. “It went completely over the heads of the weird snobs of the British critical establishment, and I don’t mind saying it.”

As excuses go, this is approaching genius.

P. Diddy and Snoop Dogg, the rappers, begin their European tour in Helsinki. Dogg has, alas, been denied a visa for Britain, forcing him to miss five concerts. “I can’t control my drugs and gang-banging past,” he pleads, earnestly. “We let the Beatles into the US, so please let me in here.”

Postscript

— How does Hugh Laurie feel after filming House, the US medical drama? “I usually feel slightly embarrassed,” he tells Rolling Stone magazine. “Slightly humiliated. I slink away like a man who has come out with his pants off.” Isn’t he more likely to run?

— All four of Jerry Hall’s children with Mick Jagger are dyslexic. This, according to the model, is a good thing. “They all take after me,” she says, proudly. “I think it’s great. It’s like a gift because it makes you think differently.” And spell differently.

— Hillary Clinton is to appear tonight in an episode of South Park, the irreverent cartoon series, on Comedy Central. The episode will revolve around the town of South Park preparing for a Clinton rally. Further plot delights will include an Islamist student plotting a terrorist attack on Hillary.

— Incomprehensible words from Sean Penn at an antiwar rally in Oakland, California. Addressing an absent President Bush, the self-styled actor-journalist wailed: “You and the smarmy pundits in your pocket – those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and blood-soaked underwear – can take that noise and shove it.” Has he been on South Park yet?

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