Just say no to ‘progressive lanyards’

The cost of living crisis has not yet impacted on the spending of taxpayers’ money on LGBT+ lanyards for people working in the Palace of Westminster. Senior Tory MP Sir Charles Walker told MPs that Parliament spent £1,639 on 1,500 “rainbow/progressive flag lanyards” in the 12 months to the end of March, up from a mere £380 on “500 rainbow lanyards” in 2022/23, and nothing in the year before. Tory MP Nick Fletcher – whose parliamentary question elicited the figures – is not a fan, urging wearers to “stop fuelling this tragic social contagion. Just say no.”

MI6 chief ‘pathetic’ says Rees-Mogg

Longstanding Garrick Club member Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg says he is “very relaxed” about women joining as long as the London club remains “jolly”. The Tory MP tells GB News: “Clubs are for fun and for association and not for endless rows.” But Rees-Mogg says the judges and spies who quit, “having suddenly discovered that the Garrick didn’t allow women to join were particularly ridiculous. The head of MI6 resigned, having been a member for some years, suddenly – ‘oh dear, are women not allowed to join. I’m so upset and I can’t cope.’ That was just pathetic.”

Are you sitting uncomfortably?

Why are some commuter train seats so much more uncomfortable than others? The comfy Southern train seats are a far cry from the ironing-board hard Thameslink ones. Norman Baker, the ex-Lib Dem MP for Lewes and a former transport minister, once investigated, amid suspicions that the piles-aggravating Thameslink seats were specified by a particularly-Cromwellian Whitehall official.

“I didn’t find out the name of the official, though did establish it was a Department for Transport official, not any rail employee,” he tells me.

Thameslink won’t say if it has had any complaints (apart from mine). “Various seat designs were tested with stakeholders. The chosen design is the one that met all the safety and capacity requirements and offered the best comfort,” a spokesman says. Really?

Trepidation in Ambridge

Actor Simon Williams loves playing well-heeled characters, like Justin Elliott in The Archers: “The great thing about playing toffs, cads and privileged people is that we usually worked [on location] in stately homes,” he says. “I did three months in EastEnders and got a little glimpse of how the other half lives.”

Williams says that the cast of The Archers is currently waiting to see who else is bumped off (the last character to be killed off was the villainous Rob Titchener last November). “All 40 of us residents of Ambridge wait to see what the scripts bring, and always turn to the last page to check whether we’ve been killed off,” he says.

Joan’s advice

Banter at the Variety Club awards between Dame Joan Collins – who was receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award – and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. “What can I say about Dame Joan? I think I was four when her first movie was made in 1952, which makes me feel very young,” Lloyd Webber said, adding that Collins “is one of our British living legends” and “an incredible friend”.

Examining her award, Collins replied: “It is so sweet of you to do this Andrew. Christopher Biggins turned me down.”

Collins signed off with a flourish, saying: “My advice for you all is: ‘Live every day as though it was going to be your last. Because one day it will be.’ Goodnight!”

Lords reform

A bright idea in the letters page of Wetherspoon News, which is distributed in the chain’s pubs. “When I told my teenage daughter that the House of Lords is likely to be abolished, she immediately replied: ‘They should turn it into a Wetherspoons!’” says customer Gareth Jones.

Over to Wetherspoons’ boss Sir Tim Martin. “Your daughter has excellent commercial instincts,” he says. “If the House of Lords were abolished, Wetherspoon would be in there like a shot.”

Princess Anne’s comedy teeth

Actress Vicki Pepperdine has revealed she uses the false teeth she wears to portray Princess Anne in Channel 4’s The Windsors to amuse people at parties. Pepperdine, 62, says: “Those false teeth appear from time to time. I’ve got them in my bottom drawer. I wear them to parties.”

The actress adds: “My mum, who was quite a fan of the Queen and Princess Anne, used to say ‘The Queen and Princess Anne do all the work!’ I think the Princess is very hard-working and takes it very seriously.”

Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope. You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk