You are never more popular in Westminster than after losing your seat. “I’ve had so many hugs from Labour MPs,” Nigel Evans said on returning to clear his office after 32 years as Tory MP for Ribble Valley. His defeat and the retirements of Dames Eleanor Laing and Rosie Winterton mean there are three deputy speaker vacancies to fill by election. Sir Roger Gale, a Tory veteran, and Labour’s Judith Cummins have both sat in during sick leave, while Caroline Nokes, former chairwoman of the women and equalities committee, and Dame Karen Bradley, former Northern Ireland secretary, are also being discussed. Perhaps we may get a first Liberal deputy since Roderic Bowen in 1966? Evans now plans to set up a consultancy dealing in crisis-management. “Hopefully the Tory party will be my first client,” he said. “I could be a millionaire by the end of a week.”
As a proud Welshman, Evans says he found solace in Sir Bryn Terfel, who sang at a friend’s wedding at the weekend. Meanwhile, Ann Davies, the new Plaid Cymru MP for Caerfyrddin, departed for Westminster at 7.23am yesterday to the hwyl of a 50-strong choir singing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau from the railway platform. I wonder if they’ll do that every week.
Thatcher’s tones
Frances Barber is the latest actress, after the likes of Meryl Streep and Gillian Anderson, to tackle Margaret Thatcher. She will play the former prime minister in a radio drama about how Laurence Olivier, played by Sir Derek Jacobi, saved her career in the 1970s by recommending the speech therapist who had deepened his voice for Othello. “It’s probably the most difficult part I’ve done,” Barber tells Radio Times. “I’m a good mimic but at the moment I’m stumped.” Steve Nallon, who played Thatcher on Spitting Image, has been giving her lessons. He says that he deepened Thatcher’s voice further as the show went on, once he realised that she had “the biggest balls in the cabinet”.
Spoils of Succession
Jesse Armstrong found life imitated art when travelling to film the last episode of Succession, his hit comedy-drama about power plays in a media empire. “We took a private jet, had champagne, caviar, some expensive Spanish crisps,” the British writer told the Idler festival. “And I sat there, penning my satirical take on the super-rich, thinking, ‘Yeah, you’re really bursting their balloon.’ ”
ConservativeHome, the online journal of the party’s grassroots, is seeking a new editor. The post was first advertised in April, with a deadline of May 13, but perhaps not enough people applied as it has just been reopened. In which case, how good of Rishi Sunak to find a way to provide 175 extra candidates.
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Fast tomes
Priorities have changed for Liz Truss since Friday. Her biography on Twitter/X now starts with “Sunday Times bestselling writer” before adding that she was also once prime minister. Yes, but only just — in both cases. Truss’s book, Ten Years to Save the West, was indeed in the hardbacks chart for a week, after selling 2,300 copies, but it dropped out the week after, never to be seen again. Meanwhile, Caroline Lucas’s book, Another England, published at the same time, lingered in the top ten for three weeks. Poor Truss, first beaten by a lettuce, then by the Greens.
