Dame Joanna Lumley says young women were “a lot tougher” over sexism in years gone by, while now there is a trend for being “a victim”. The actor and author, who started out as a model in the Sixties, says “the new fashion is to be a victim, a victim of something. It’s pathetic. We have gone mad.”
When asked about the #MeToo movement, she told Prospect magazine: “If someone whistled at you in the street, it didn’t matter. If someone was groping, we slapped their hands. We were quite tough and looked after ourselves.”
The Absolutely Fabulous star, inset, also defended her failed proposal for a “garden bridge” on the Thames, supported by Boris Johnson when he was mayor. She claimed “our country hates new ideas” and said the bridge would have been “magic” during lockdown. When the project was scrapped in 2017, it had eaten up £43 million of taxpayers’ money.
Rachel Reeves: she’s a card
Labour’s Rachel Reeves sends Christmas cards to the many, not the few. The shadow chancellor says she writes 3,200 every year, and starts in the summer. Perhaps she doesn’t know there’s a postal strike on. Though once described as “boring snoring”, Reeves spiced up her image in a chat with the Spectator magazine last week, signing a card for lucky journalists.
Portrait row at commission
A row has broken out at the Australian High Commission on the Strand, which has taken down 26 portraits of former top diplomats that used to line the stairs. An Australian newspaper says it’s because they are all white men who were “symbols of patriarchy”, and it’s a move to be more inclusive. The embassy claims that isn’t true, but hasn’t give an alternative reason. What will they put up instead?
The Truss post-mortem continues
Despite her short time as PM, Liz Truss is said to be considering creating a think-tank for her economic ideas. She has some support: Simon Clarke, Truss’s levelling up secretary, has written a panegyric to her in The Critic, saying she was “fundamentally and importantly right”, and calling her downfall a “tragedy”. Kwasi Kwarteng disagrees, admitting they “blew it” in a recent interview.
Dua and Stormzy colab?
Capital Radio hosted its annual Jingle Bell Ball at the O2 Arena last night. Host Roman Kemp pressed Stormzy and Dua Lipa to make a song together, while singer George Ezra went too. On Saturday, at Bafta HQ on Piccadilly, fictional bear Paddington brought his co-star Hugh Bonneville and fellow actors Olivia Colman and Matt Lucas together for a UNICEF bash in aid of refugee children.
