BARONESS WILLIAMS’S surviving “Gang of Four” colleagues paid tribute to her at a Westminster Cathedral memorial service yesterday. Lord Rodgers read out a letter he had written about her while they were at Oxford together 70 years before. It said Shirley Williams, right, had “mental ability, physical energy, and ambition” but “could be ruthless, and occasionally she fibs”. In 1981, she and Bill Rodgers, David Owen and Roy Jenkins broke from Labour to form the Social Democratic Party, which became the Liberal Democrats.
Williams died last year, but was able to have only a small funeral. About 250 people attended yesterday’s ceremony, including Owen and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who recalled inviting her to speak to a “packed room” when he was at Eton. He told us the service was “beautifully done” and that he enjoyed Rogers’s “humorous speech”. Rees-Mogg fondly remembers the baronness, who was friend of his late father, as being “always charming and kindly”.
Matt and the mask muddle
Officials at Bordeaux Airport had to ask Matt Hancock to put on the right mask on Monday, a fellow passenger tells The Londoner, causing a prolonged search for the correct one. The former health secretary, left, who was with new partner Gina Coladangelo, told us he couldn’t remember completely, but was asked to put on a face covering when checking his luggage. “I flew totally normally with a mask on,” he said. It can happen to anyone ...
Putting on The Ritz
MODELS Amber Le Bon and Betty Bachz glammed up alongside Viscountess Weymouth and director Charlotte Carroll at a dinner preparing for Royal Ascot at The Ritz last night. Also there were model Ellen Francis Gibbons and reality star Georgia Toffolo, who joked with pal Alexandra Bertram. The Londoner spotted that Le Bon and Bachz donned new dresses before heading to the dinner after lunching with Perrier-Jouet at 34 Mayfair. Elsewhere, Saturdays singer Vanessa White enjoyed celebrating the launch of make-up brand U Beauty.
Labour manifesto leak still causes trouble
LABOUR has started a lively internal argument over who leaked its 2017 manifesto, five years after that election. Its author, Andrew Fisher, said Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto was leaked “to sabotage the party” and “suspicion fell on the far from loyal deputy” Tom Watson — who defended himself robustly. Move over Wagatha Christie?
Shock over West End prices
THE theatre world is in uproar — tickets for Cock, at the Ambassadors Theatre, are on sale for £400 each this week due to “surge” pricing. The theatre defended itself by saying that at least 15 per cent of tickets to the show, which stars Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey, right, were £20. But one theatre director tells us the West End has a problem: “It’s sadly heading towards Broadway prices which are obscene.”
