Brown critic repents and rephrases

When Colin Byrne, Labour’s former chief press officer-turned-corporate PR guru, accused Gordon Brown of being surrounded by “incompetents” at last week’s G8 Summit, this was taken as a criticism of the Downing Street media operation.

How wrong can we be. After a rethink the Shandwick boss has clarified his thoughts on Mr Brown’s “communications hiccups”. Those musings were merely “a comms guy with a deep interest in comms, commenting on a comms story that is dominating the media and journalists’ conversations with comms people like me. End of.”

Very comm-venient. Mr Byrne adds: “This Government continues to come up with innovative ideas. Take Hazel Blears this week . . .” An invitation we politely refuse.

The sun is still smiling on Tom Harris, the Transport Minister, who ticked off voters for being “bloody miserable”.

“Just finished a Big Mac meal (and yes, I did go large),” he blogs. “So why do so many people hate McDonald’s? As far as I can see they sell extremely tasty food at reasonable prices, and provide a venue that is decidedly family-friendly.”

His children, Ronnie and Reggie, made short work of their Happy Meals. These are fake names, Harris adds, to protect their true identities.

Snorkelling looks hard work for Uma Thurman, holidaying with her multi-millionaire fiancé Arpad Busson and her children in Corsica. Or is the Kill Bill actress struggling to escape from manacles that her husband-to-be, a hedge fund manager, thoughtfully appears to have clamped to her right foot?

Errant Stone heads home

The Face: Ronnie Wood

“Each time Ronnie falls off the wagon it gets worse,” sighed Jo Wood as the errant Rolling Stones guitarist flew in from his love nest in Ireland for crisis talks with his long-suffering wife.

Wood has formed a bond with Ekaterina Ivanova, an 18-year-old Russian waitress. He is said to be drinking two bottles of vodka a day. Her mother claims that Ekaterina is a “model” for Wood the artist.

Only the stern eye of Sir Mick Jagger appears able to keep the wizened guitarist, 61, on the straight and narrow. It seems that, despite the decades, it’s still not safe to let your daughter near a Stone. Is this The Last Time that Ron will stray?

Postscript

Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson tells Q Radio, that he was recently staying in a hotel room next to Rufus Wainwright, the singer-songwriter. “I could hear some of the words he was singing and then I wrote them down. I thought, we will rush release this.”

Zara Phillips has become the first royal to take part in an internet viral advertising campaign. An obnoxious footballer attempts to chat up the equestrian in the commercial for Land Rover. Not dignified, maybe, but the campaign is designed to promote eventing ahead of the Olympics.

We have a world exclusive on Jamiroquai’s new album. “Its working title is Cillit Bang and the Sea Dragon. The sea dragon is an endangered species of sea horse – a beautiful thing. The juxtaposition of the two things just seems to make sense,” Jay Kay told us at the Cartier Style et Luxe competition at Goodwood Festival of Speed. It should clean up.

Panic among the paparazzi outside the Fondation Lenval hospital in Nice yesterday, when Dr Michel Sussmann, Angelina Jolie’s obstetrician, dashed inside leaving his Mercedes coupé double-parked outside for more than an hour with its hazard lights flashing.

“The doctor normally leaves his car in the underground garage,” said a (possibly bored) Brangelina watcher.

Had any harm come to new additions, Knox and Vivienne? “They are all very well. Everything is OK,” replied the doc, who may be looking forward to a break from his pager.

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