The Londoner: Cameron launch bridges divide

David Cameron launched his memoir, For The Record, last night surrounded by family, friends and Tory defectors but only a smattering of Brexiteers. “It was very hush-hush, there were no press outside,” one attendee of the bash told The Londoner.

Cameron told the audience about how the book had come about via the late literary agent Ed Victor. Victor took Cameron to Miami and Donald Trump’s golf course. Though Trump wasn’t there, his golf caddy, CJ, was. While they played, CJ told Cameron that Trump’s handicap was two, but he had the Foot Wedge in the game. Cameron explained to the non-golfers in the audience that a Foot Wedge means chipping the ball into the hole... with your foot. Helpful. The former PM name checked a number of those who had helped with the book including Sir Oliver Letwin. New Lib Dem MP Sam Gyimah joined Amber Rudd, Norman Lamont, Matt Hancock and the current PM’s brother Jo Johnson at The Conduit, a smart members’ club in Mayfair that bills itself as a “diverse community of people passionate about driving social change” and has become a temple for London’s capitalists with a conscience. Gyimah and Hancock were spotted in happy conversation.

“Obviously those defections haven’t become too personal,” one party-goer informed The Londoner.

Guests enjoyed Perrier-Jouët and yearned for the canapés (“it was so crowded you couldn’t get to them,” one guest said), before Cameron took to the stage. He had strong words for Jamie Oliver, whose cookbook about vegetables is out soon. A source said Cameron joked to guests that it is essentially a “rip off” of his, as though one is about food and the other is about modernising the Conservative Party, both deal with the task of “turning something unpalatable into quite a nice thing”.

As he stepped off the stage, visibly emotional, he hugged his wife Samantha. Perhaps it was relief more than anything: she told the audience that the whole process of her husband writing the book had been like a very long labour.

Ben Elton's early costume drama

Comedian and writer Ben Elton recalls his time at South Warwickshire Tech, when he studied liberal arts and lived alone in a caravan. The college also offered catering and engineering.

“The caterers would be in their big white hats and the engineers would be in their dungarees and we’d be going in in our drama tights,” he tells James O’Brien’s podcast. “It was tribal — it was identity politics. I always remember the caterers in their big white hats laughing at how stupid we looked in our tights.

“We’d be going, ‘Look at your hats!’”

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The new term is in full swing: fancy getting schooled by a Rees-Mogg? Not the Leader of the Commons but his nephew, William, who works as a private tutor for Pembroke Tutors. The former President of the Oxford University Conservative Association once called the prospect of his uncle becoming PM a “traumatic and terrible idea”. A* for insight.

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Classicist Mary Beard says she has sampled the £4.7 million solid gold toilet recently stolen from Blenheim Palace. A photo is doing the rounds of Beard “sitting rather demurely” on it, though, she adds: “I have a rather more revealing version of this.” Mercifully, she has no plans to publish it.

Russell has yet another new awakening

Russell Brand once said he would never vote as he suffered from “absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class” then later did a U-turn to back Ed Miliband in the 2015 election. Now he urges supporters to join a “movement” which “offers opportunities for... a new awakening”, adding: “We live in brutal times... As the world burns, we need to create new systems.” The Londoner is reserving judgment (for now).

SW1A

Mark Francois (below) was wrongly accused of police impersonation this morning after a photo emerged on Twitter of the Rayleigh MP strolling through an Essex Wetherspoons sporting a stab-proof police vest. The Londoner, however, can confirm that Francois was not breaking the law, but was on a ride-out with Essex Police. According to his parliamentary office, it was the sixth time Francois has ridden out with the boys in blue. While he sadly did not make any arrests, the MP was present for “some incidents”.

Asked whether Francois enjoyed wearing the uniform, The Londoner was told firmly: “It was a safety precaution, not a fashion choice.

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A good spot by Jack Blanchard of Politico, who discovers that Labour is having fun with a new error message on its website. When a page fails to load, users will see a picture of the Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel empty-chairing Boris Johnson.

Aboahs abound at V&A Walker party

Farewell to another London Fashion Week. The hottest closing party on the circuit was the launch of Vogue photographer Tim Walker’s Wonderful Things exhibition at the V&A. The exhibition explores the magic of Walker’s labyrinthine mind through extraordinary images, films, sets and installations. Guests included models Lady Amelia Windsor, Karen Elson and Alice Dellal. Entrepreneur Charles Aboah and his wife, creative agent Camilla Lowther, arrived with their model daughters Adwoa and Kesewa.

Walker has said that much of his imagery is inspired by the wildness of his childhood. “I know the privilege of growing up feral, being allowed to run around gave me a lot of what I draw on now.” He said that he is fairly uninterested in platforms such as Instagram. “I’m not comfortable with people looking at technology too much, because it takes you out of reality in a relentless, needy way.”

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