Vince Cable
(Picture: Lucy Young)Former leader Sir Vince Cable says the Lib Dems need to learn how to work with other parties in a way “that doesn’t shaft the party” in future.
Despite its fallout, Sir Vince, right, doesn’t think their 2010 coalition with the Tories was an error. “Mistakes were made, for sure. It was good for the country but bad for the party,” he told us.
The Lib Dems lost 49 of their 57 seats in 2015. It is predicted that Labour might need their support at the next election, but Sir Vince thinks the party would not back another full coalition. An event at the Lib Dem conference next month will ask if the last coalition was a mistake.
Cable has written a new book with his wife Rachel about the coalition years, including her diary entries. The tome is less “bitchy” than indiscreet Tory Sasha Swire’s, he says. What a shame...
The end for Stewart and Campbell?
Ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart is worried that his podcast double act with Labour man Alastair Campbell might break up, now that they have lost the one thing they had in common: a dislike of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.
The only hope for The Rest Is Politics is if Johnson “tries to crawl back into the back toilet window of Downing Street,” Stewart joked on the All Talk podcast. Stewart said he and Campbell have ended up in some “horrible” shouting matches.
Tribute to Raymond Briggs
COMPOSER Howard Blake, who wrote Walking in the Air, has paid tribute to his friend Raymond Briggs, the illustrator who died aged 88 on Tuesday. The pair were introduced by a C4 executive in 1981, and made family favourite film The Snowman. Blake told us Briggs was a “rare and wonderful talent” who could move people without words. He added: “I shall miss you, Raymond, and so will all the children of the world”.
Cricket tour goes quiet
On Tuesday we wrote how the Lords and Commons cricket team toured Jamaica, with flights paid for by Virgin, as a crisis looms. Tory Caroline Dinenage posted pictures of the team, including Chris Heaton-Harris and Nigel Adams, as well as one with West Indies star Chris Gayle. She’s now deleted the snaps.
Bridgerton the musical: the show can’t go on
The curtains won’t be opening on The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, which had been due to play the Royal Albert Hall next month. Writers Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear have cancelled the show, which started as a TikTok sensation, after legal theats from Netflix. The producer of the hit period drama accused the parody of “the blatant taking of intellectual property”. This time, the show can’t go on.
Feathers for Berlin would be villain
Star Daisy Edgar-Jones went to the Berlin premiere of her film Where The Crawdads Sing in a feather-fringed outfit last night. The actor, who recently bought her first London flat, says she’s sick of playing “quiet nice people” and wants to try being a villain.
Off Oxford Street, sex and relationships writer Oloni and music agent Caroline SM were at a Beats by Dre and Kim Kardashian collab.
