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The Londoner: Is it PM book No 2 for Finkelstein?

"It's coming": David Cameron: (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid - WPA Pool /Getty Images): Getty Images
"It's coming": David Cameron: (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid - WPA Pool /Getty Images): Getty Images

The delay on David Cameron’s political memoirs, which have been put back a year to September 2019, may make next year particularly busy for Daniel Finkelstein, journalist, author and consultant on the Cameron book.

For the entire time Cameron occupied 10 Downing Street, Finkelstein made evening visits to record his thoughts. Those tape recordings — 50 hours’ worth —provide the backbone of the work. But Finkelstein — who was ennobled by Cameron in 2013 — is said to be performing the same task for Theresa May, who he also preps for Prime Minister’s Questions.

Since her failed snap election last summer, there has been incessant chatter about when May will go. Few — privately — believe she will last the full term and current focus is on the autumn, when the Government faces yet more crunch votes on Brexit.

If May goes early, the question is whether Finkelstein, who has been given a Downing Street pass, will be in the slightly odd position of having two autobiographies competing with each other by the end of next year.

On top of his work for the current and former prime ministers, the peer is chair of new Conservative think tank Onward, as well as a regular on the Radio 4 News Quiz: he’s a dab hand with a pen, but how much work would he need to do to bring these prime ministerial memoirs to life? Cameron, who last night assured us “it’s coming” on the subject of his biography, was given an £800,000 deal with William Collins for the book.

No sum has been guessed at for May’s. Given the “naughtiest thing” she’d ever done was “run through fields of wheat”, we suspect Theresa May’s autobiography might not fetch quite the same sum.

To misquote a phrase, it could be a case of waiting an age for a prime ministerial memoir, then two come along at once.

Nick sends out May day distress signal

Warning signals: Nick Timothy: (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Warning signals: Nick Timothy: (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

DISGRACED chief of staff Nick Timothy says in a New Statesman essay that Theresa May’s Government is in “a relentless civil war” and “cannot hope to govern coherently”. On the election he encouraged her to call, he says May “did not enjoy the exposure of what was a very personal campaign” and blames the Treasury for preventing them from pursuing domestic policies that would have saved the nation. “One senior Conservative said to me recently, ‘Labour governments fall when they run out of money, Tory when they run out of purpose’.”

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What is Bloomberg economics head Stephanie Flanders’s favourite job of her career? “I’m supposed to say my current job,” she tells Spear’s Magazine. “But truthfully, being BBC economics editor during the financial crisis is hard to beat.” If she fancies going back to the Beeb, a large, David Dimbleby-sized vacancy is about to appear.

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Helpful advice from the Foreign Office for English fans boozing in Russia. Accompanying a shot-glass graphic, the FCO notes “toasting with a shot of vodka in Russia is a social custom, but can lead to problems if you’re not drinking a standard measure”.

A clear-the-decks order from Grayson to the V&A DJ Mary Charteris

Star pals: Mary Katrantzou, Sabine Getty, Princess Beatrice of York and Alice Naylor-Leyland: (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Victoria and Albert Museum) (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Victoria and Albert Museum)
Star pals: Mary Katrantzou, Sabine Getty, Princess Beatrice of York and Alice Naylor-Leyland: (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Victoria and Albert Museum) (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Victoria and Albert Museum)

Grayson Perry cycled on his pink bicyle to the V&A summer party wearing two-inch platforms and an outfit he described as a “space age mini kimono with lustrous hairy shorts”. The artist, who is famous for dressing as Claire, a middle-aged woman with a bob and Mary Jane heels, insists: “I don’t have an alter ego. I don’t inhabit anything, I just am.” Last night Perry, who wears a hearing aid, was disapproving of the party’s “background music”: “It’s the enemy of the 58-year-old-person. I hate this, I really hate this.” The Londoner informed him that DJ Lady Mary Charteris was behind it: “I couldn’t give a flying f*** who it is,” he answered, “it’s annoying me.”

Presenter Claudia Winkleman and actor Gwendoline Christie were also among the guests, as was amateur photographer Brooklyn Beckham and actor Talulah Riley. They were joined by Princess Beatrice and Lady Kitty Spencer.

SW1A

Rory Bremner first met Theresa May at a function at Eton College some years ago when she was Home Secretary. He looked her up on Wikipedia beforehand and, misspelling her name, discovered Teresa May, a soft-porn actress. The comedian, who campaigns for ADHD awareness, exuberantly revealed this detail to the politician as he shook her hand. “It was then that I discovered she doesn’t have a sense of humour,” he relates.

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PhilLip Lee MP, former justice minister, resigned last week over Brexit. Did he have another motivation? He’s a football fanatic and attended World Cups in 2002 and 2006. With no official UK representation in Russia, he couldn’t go as a minister.

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TORIES are desperate to reveal they’ve never smoked cannabis. Theresa May’s spokesman confirms she hasn’t and Iain Duncan Smith is “by no means a supporter of recreational use”. We assume the slicing gesture Matt Hancock made at his neck when asked is also a “no”.

Quote of the day

"A centre-Right think tank reception where Michael Gove is not the guest speaker"

Is Theresa May, speaking at a Policy Exchange event last night, keeping nervous tabs on her rivals?

Captive audience

Former hostage John McCarthy shares his memories of the 1986 World Cup, which was going on while he and Brian Keenan were incarcerated by Islamic Jihad in Lebanon. “I remember when we first were taken. There was a guard — I never saw him as we were blindfolded the whole time — but he kept coming in the room saying, ‘Lineker, Lineker, I love Lineker.’ Knowing nothing about football, I thought it was the Arabic word for goal.” McCarthy, who was speaking at a Freedom From Torture event at Bafta last night, added: “A few years ago I met the famous Gary and told him that story.”