Déjà vu: Lady Thatcher swings her handbag

The new Lady Thatcher, Sarah Russell, Sir Mark’s new wife, has inherited a penchant for the handbag. “There’s only one label I like and that is Hermès,” she says. “I collect them and my husband has bought me 15 in the past three years.”

Russell, 42, the sister of Viscountess Rothermere, has an ingenious system. “There is this chap at Hermès and he’ll say, ‘We have this particular bag’, and Mark sort of arranges it,” she tells Tatler. “I keep [them] in their nice orange boxes.”

“Sometimes I say yes, sometimes I say no,” interjects hubby, who is worth about £30 million.

Sir Mark, whose headmaster “said I did not have a serious thought in my head”, is at present unable to visit his children in the US after that little misunderstanding over Equatorial Guinea. Does he still talk to his former wife Diane? “Define the term talk,” he grimaces.

Nevertheless, he is continuing in the defence business. “I have just finished an interesting project in Russia,” he says. Let’s hope it didn’t involve Georgia.

It’s Wednesday, so time for Posh to drop the bob look and slip into the “pixie” crop – made famous by Audrey Hepburn and then modelled by Halle Berry in her 2002 Bond girl pomp. Debuted at the Marc Jacobs catwalk show in New York, Mrs Beckham’s new look was in no way intended to upstage J-Lo, who was sitting a few spaces along the front row.

David texted his wife during the event for “progress reports”.

Regulars at the Royal Opera House struggled with the enthusiastic arrival of an audience of Don Giovanni virgins at Monday night’s performance for readers of The Sun . The practice, swiftly adopted, of applauding at the end of each aria and bursting into laughter at the Don’s devious antics delighted the cast more than seasoned buffs. David Mellor kept his appreciation until the end of each act; but Harriet Harman, a supporter of equal opportunities at Covent Garden, entered into the spirit of the occasion.

The launch party for Cameron on Cameron would not have been complete without the man himself, who was in cocky form at the Park Lane bash. The Tory leader had been on the train back from Birmingham with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. “I was able to provide some therapy for Cabinet ministers who don’t often get the chance to talk to a party leader,” he said. He added that he hopes that the interview tapes, on which the book is based, will be destroyed to avoid any future Richard Nixon-style embarrassment.

Was Life on Mars, the hit time-travel drama set in the 1970s, a vehicle for left-wing bias? The BBC Trust says not, after rejecting a complaint from a viewer who accused the series of “insulting the memory of Mrs Thatcher”. Sam Tyler was “a moderate, liberal, ‘new Labour’ type of police officer”, says the BBC. His jokes about a female PM are “uttered within the context of the 1970s where the idea of women holding any kind of power is clearly unimaginable to Gene Hunt”. Don’t get him started on Sarah Palin.

Radio-friendly rebellion girl
The Face - Katy Perry

"I kissed a girl and I liked it,” sang Katy Perry, the perky Californian pop star, whose lipgloss lesbian anthem has taken root at No 1, and provoked a fire-and-brimstone reaction from Christian fundamentalists.

Perry, who is set for a culture shock when she performs in a shabby King’s Cross pub tonight, is the voice of sassy teens who think that High School Musical is “so lame” but still want their rebellion radio-friendly. She is the daughter of “supportive” Christian ministers, and her songwriting prowess was honed by Nashville experts.

Her every move is followed by celebrity bloggers and her hit song has six million MySpace plays. But the follow-up – Ur So Gay – has prompted accusations of homophobia. It seems that, at the grand old age of 23, Perry will soon have to graduate from pop’s playground.

Postscript

Is there bad news for President Sarkozy in GQ, where a face-reading specialist analyses his visage? “Hollow undereye area. You can see the whites on three sides around his irises, a mark of adrenal deficiency, which can provoke attacks by stalkers – many assassinated American presidents showed this sign”, says the merciless expert.

— Radio 4 has tempted Katie Derham, the ITV newsreader, back to the Beeb to front the holiday show, Traveller’s Tree. “She should never have been allowed to leave the BBC,” says Mark Damazer, the station boss. Don’t tell her agent, but Ms Derham’s contract is “good value” for licence-fee payers.

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