Red meat Tory

Kemi Badenoch
Kemi Badenoch

Conservative leadership contender Kemi Badenoch says her three children are “pretty Right-wing” because they love eating meat. “I have a four-year-old who thinks being vegetarian is a very bad thing,” she told me on Chopper’s Political Podcast. Badenoch asked her daughter what her favourite foods were. She replied: “Ribs, bacon, sausages, black pudding, lamb chops.” Badenoch now has to smuggle greens into their meals, she says.

Tory party members, tired of being offered red meat by various party leaders and having to make do with vegetables, will sympathise.


Scouse prices

I hear a Labour minister and their officials have been the victim of Oasis-style “dynamic pricing” at this weekend’s party’s conference in Liverpool and had their hotel rooms cancelled and then reoffered at much higher prices. The minister is furious and wants the website that arranged the rooms to be investigated. Will they be able to find reasonably priced rooms in Liverpool? Definitely maybe.


George’s friends

Farewell to London’s Evening Standard, the 197-year-old newspaper which stopped its daily print edition on Thursday. Ex-Tory Chancellor George Osborne paid tribute: “As a former editor, I celebrate the generations of journalists, sub editors, advertising teams, printers, drivers and vendors who made that possible.”

Osborne did not have space to mention a list of his friends that the paper’s City Spy diary column was not allowed to upset, according to one old Standard hand. It includes ex-Bank of England governor Mark Carney, PR guru Sir Alan Parker, Tories Lord Barker, Tom Tugendhat, and Matt Hancock, as well as Qatar Airways, Metro Bank, Uber, Deliveroo, Goldman Sachs and Paddy Power. Osborne says: “I never saw a list – or constructed one.”


Jess spreads her wings

New Liberal Democrat MP for Chichester Jess Brown-Fuller marked her election win by getting “the bird of liberty” – the party’s logo since 1989 – tattooed on her back, Brown-Fuller told me at this week’s conference. Her mother and election agent have followed suit. I have not seen such commitment since the London 2012 medal-winning athletes were inked with Olympic rings.


Staycation Gyles

Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth says his trousers have fallen down in an airport after he forgot to put his belt back on after going through security at Heathrow Terminal 5, echoing Rev Richard Coles’s experience a few weeks ago. Brandreth has now been put off taking foreign holidays.

“Why does anyone ever go abroad? The hassle at the airport, the heaving of cases on and off the conveyer belt when you’re struggling through security,” he writes in The Oldie magazine. “It’s too much for me at my age. I don’t need it any more. That’s why this summer I stayed at home.”


Sinful fruit

Jacob Rees-Mogg tried his first ever smoothie, live on his GB News show this week. “Oh my Lord, it’s disgusting, absolutely revolting,” the former Conservative MP exclaimed, after sipping a green coloured spinach and avocado smoothie from a tall glass. “I would strongly recommend you don’t try one. I hear the fruit ones have bananas in, which are a sin against the Holy Ghost.” What have bananas ever done wrong, Jacob?


Fabbers bares all

Michael Fabricant goes for a topless walk in Wales
Michael Fabricant goes for a topless walk in Wales

Former Tory MP Michael Fabricant enjoyed the Indian summer by stripping off on a walking holiday this week. “Great walk in blazing sunshine in west Wales,” he posted on social media, and, next to this photograph, above: “Ignore the moobs.” Explaining why he stripped off, Fabbers told me: “There were very few people around to admire – or otherwise – my man boobs, and it was a very hot day, so I didn’t think it completely inappropriate.” But is it ever appropriate for late middle-aged men to walk around shirtless, if they are not on a beach?


Labour epitaphs

Thanks to readers who offered catchy rhymes to describe Labour’s removal of pensioners’ winter fuel allowance in a similar vein to “Thatcher Thatcher, milk snatcher”. Richard Lees offered: “Starmer, Starmer, Granny Harmer!” Andy Malcolm sent in: “Reeves, Reeves, Pensioners Freeze.” Both might catch on.

I liked Colin Hodge’s limerick:

“A delightful man called Starmer/

Could not appear more calmer/

When he took away/

pensioners winter fuel pay/

Not really much of a charmer?”

Can anyone do better?


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