Tories throw the twit out of town

Hello? Conservative Party press office?

“Hello,” says a press officer. Yes. Hello. Today, we’d like to talk about Webcameron, Dave’s spangly website. We’ve spotted a forum, started by a reader, entitled Tories to end out-of-town free parking. Not exactly complimentary, is it? “Well,” says the spokesman. “We do host a very open forum.”

Oh, you do indeed. Many angry Tories in there. Strident debate and all that. Very impressive. But to be honest, we were sort of wondering if you’d censored it a bit. Silly, really. It’s just that, yesterday, that same forum was titled Eton twit throws next election.

“I will investigate,” says the spokesman, primly, after a while, “because that would, of course, be an outrage.”

Jolly good.

Yesterday, perhaps with rather uncharitable cruelty, we wrote of the disappointing sales of Gordon Brown’s book Courage: Eight Portraits. Today we are reliably informed that one shopper, sifting through the unwanted dregs at the end of last weekend’s jumble sale at St Dominic’s Priory in northwest London, bought a copy of Courage signed by the Prime Minister. For £1. Also included in the price was a book about the care of cats and a picture book of Egypt. Bargain.

Despite the hype, Quentin Tarantino has no plans to direct an episode of Heroes. “They were trying to get me to do one,” he said at a press conference in Liverpool. “I haven’t even seen the f***ing show.”

In the last few months of her life Anita Roddick, the Body Shop founder, was waiting for the right calm, clear night to carry out the last wishes of her own late mother — to have her ashes packed into fireworks and detonated over Brighton beach. We trust that this is not a responsibility her executors will overlook.

With some degree of lip-curling smugness (it must be catching) Newsnight sent a reporter, Jackie Long, out on Tuesday night to berate members of the public for their confusion about imperial and metric measurements. Thereafter, she gave a small maths lesson as a series of conversion ratios flashed up on the screen. Today, Peter Barron, Newsnight’s editor, apologises. “Many viewers spotted that the figure we gave for the conversion from miles to kilometres was wrong. It should of course be 1.609 not 1.069. Excruciating.” These can’t have been viewers who watched the show on the BBC’s website. Mysteriously, at that exact point, the screen freezes.

The producers of Blair on Broadway, a musical about the former Prime Minister, have hit upon a novel way of raising funds. “I call it my ‘cash-for-couplets’ strategy,” says Iain Hollingshead, one of the writers. “I write to rich people and mention that they appear in (or in some way inspire) part of the musical. It is reaping rewards.” His favourite response, so far, comes from Sir Christopher Meyer, our former man in Washington, who so memorably described Mr Blair’s wardrobe in his memoirs. He made a contribution “to the Tony Blair memorial codpiece, to be worn over ball-crushingly tight trousers”.

Postscript

Traffic trouble in downtown LA for Will Smith and Charlize Theron. Hollywood Boulevard was shut down for three days during the shoot for their new action movie, Hancock. One irate driver said to reporters: “For three days? Not everyone in this town is a tourist or a member of the film industry.” Really?

— Victoria Beckham (no, stay with us, it might be worth it) could appear in the next movie directed by the Friends star David Schwimmer. “I’d defintely consider her for a role. I have something in mind actually. Her people should call my people,” he said while publicising Run, Fat Boy, Run. From the title, her movie won’t be a sequel.

— Pressing issues face Boris Johnson when – sorry, if – he becomes the Tories’ London mayoral hopeful. An appeal by Conservativehome.com for questions for Boris has seen three flood in. They are: “Can you bring back the Routemaster?”; “Don’t you think the most pressing transport issue is overcrowding on the Tube?”; and “Which animal do you think Ken Livingstone most resembles – a weasel or an otter?” That last one could swing it.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Donor organ allowed child’s own heart to heal
• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating