Brakes on for Cable’s car lust

It’s never quite clear if twinkletoes Vincent Cable is on the same page as his Lib Dem colleagues. The “real” Shadow Chancellor admitted that the environmental strictures of his party’s sandalistas had caused him some difficulty, as he finalised a wish list for his appearance on Desert Island Discs. Cable, it seems, is a petrolhead on the sly. “I’m planning to ask for a fast car and some tarmac as my luxury,” he said. But party advisers warned him that besmirching his island paradise could play badly with core voters.

“I love speed,” said the former chief economist at Shell, as he revealed that his dream car would be a top-of-the-range Aston Martin. Listeners can find out whether the boy racer stays true to his passions on Sunday.

Who needs a pair of Golden Globes? Congratulations to Lord Faulkner of Worcester, John McDonnell, MP, and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, recipients of the prestigious “flying penis” prize at yesterday’s Erotic Awards. The Grand Jury of Conspicuous Sensuality honoured the politicians at a Westminster ceremony for their campaigns on behalf of sex workers. The awards are backed by the Consenting Adult Action Network and, perhaps inevitably, will be screened by Channel 4.

“We’ll stop this from happening even if we have to move in and plant vegetables,” said Emma Thompson on Friday as she signed the deeds for land that had been earmarked for Heathrow’s third runway. Then by the magic of some futuristic travel device she was in Los Angeles looking dazzling at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards.

Charlie Mullins isn’t Britain’s richest plumber for nothing. The millionaire founder of Pimlico Plumbers was invited to Clarence House to discuss a project for the Prince’s Trust. “The place was freezing,” he said. “I took the Prince’s assistant private secretary aside and told him I could get someone round within the hour to get the thing going again.” At his usual celebrity rate, no doubt, a mere £70 an hour.

While at the T. S. Eliot Prize-giving, Andy Burnham, the Culture Minister, said his favourite Ted Hughes poem was You Hated Spain, Hughes’s account of his honeymoon with Sylvia Plath. Not wise — the poet’s second wife, Carol, was at the ceremony.

Tom Cruise is the star guest of Jonathan Ross’s comeback show next Friday, but don’t send him a crate of Moët, if you’re a BBC toiler. Staff can buy the talent presents, a stern memo on expenses states, but these should be modest, with champagne forbidden.

Rise of a big voice

The Face Jodie Prenger

Does size really matter? The producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh might have had his doubts about whether the curvy Lancashire lass could make it in the West End, but BBC viewers put him in his place when they chose her to play Nancy in the revived production of Oliver!, which opens tonight at Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Jodie Prenger, 28, has certainly paid her dues. She was a regular on the cabaret circuit and has performed at Alton Towers and on a Disney cruise ship. She is also no stranger to winning reality television shows. In 2006 she took part in The Biggest Loser, on Living TV, dropping from a size 26 to a size 10. Prenger, now a happy size 14, wowed the public and Andrew Lloyd Webber with her scorching voice last year on I’d Do Anything. And her vow to Mackintosh? “I will give him the best Nancy he has ever seen.”

Postscript

Brad Pitt had to encourage his action hero wife, Angelina Jolie, to climb over a hedge to get into an exclusive Golden Globes party: “C’mon babe, you can do this!”

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