Londoner's Diary
Rishi Sunak and all living former prime ministers gathered yesterday at the Cenotaph in London to pay their respects, above. There are now seven former PMs pursuing post-No 10 interests. Boris Johnson is joining GB News and Liz Truss is drafting an alternative budget.
But how do the former PMs get along? Theresa May, still an MP, seems to have some tension with Truss. She criticised her successor-but-one when she was PM and was seen cracking a smile last week in the Commons when an MP questioned whether Truss can be considered a former PM given her short reign.
Yesterday, May posted a picture of the Remembrance Sunday line-up on X, choosing a shot that excluded Truss. Ouch. But she has been full of praise for the new Foreign Secretary, her old boss David Cameron. May’s spokesperson told us Truss was not intentionally cropped, but that the angle of the photo obscured her.
Each year on Remembrance Sunday, we assemble at the Cenotaph to honour the sacrifice of the fallen and pay tribute to the servicemen & women we place in harm’s way.
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) November 12, 2023
Today - as every day - we will remember them. #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/aJ4Hjkm1C0
Boris pipped on Roman return
So in the end it was David Cameron, not Boris Johnson, who came out of retirement like the Roman general Cincinnatus to serve as Foreign Secretary. In his resignation address last year, Johnson likened himself to Cincinnatus yet his Eton contemporary seems to have outdone him on this occasion. But was this latest twist of political drama really so unpredictable? As far back as 2018, Cameron had reportedly been telling friends that he wished to be back in government because he was “bored sh**less”. Specifically, he was eyeing up the Foreign Office.
Without indulging in too much of a “we told you so”, this column predicted only in July this year that Cameron was the ghost of Tory past most likely to return to help Rishi Sunak win an election. There will be some awkward smoothing over to do: Sunak has dumped large parts of Cameron’s landmark HS2 project and recently lamented 30 years of failure, which includes Cameron’s time in office.
Cara's down to Earth
Saturday night saw the official launch party of the Earthed project, the nature skills platform founded by Cara Delevingne, Ruby Reed and Christabel Reed. At the party at Late at Laylow in Notting Hill, Jaime Winstone took over the DJ booth. Earthed teaches users how to grow food, restore rivers, harvest rainwater, reforest, prevent floods and much more. Members donate what they feel so the platform provides nature skills to as wide a range of people as possible.
Fashionable friends
At Selfridge’s, stylist and former Evening Standard journalist Bay Garnett launched her book Style and Substance: Why What We Wear Matters with contributions from fashionable friends including Bella Freud, Jarvis Cocker, Chloë Sevigny and Stanley Tucci. Costume designer Sandy Powell, model Eunice Olumide and former British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman were there.
