Those who came to scoff stayed to diet

Last week we scoffed at those reports that the Queen was running out of money. We aren’t scoffing any more. Nor were guests at the Queen’s Garden Party. There was a distinct lack of scoffing, and indeed, a distinct lack of things to scoff.

People had two agents at the Palace, both experienced garden party operators, able to smell a prawn canapé from 300 yards. They had to share a cucumber sandwich.

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP London Assembly Member who originally wanted to bring Nick Griffin along as his wife, was kept at a safe distance from the Queen for the duration. Nor did he get any cucumber sandwiches. He was soon describing the whole concept of cucumber sandwiches at the Palace as “an absolute fallacy”.

Somehow he had managed to snaffle a huge plate of food, though, which made guests wonder how he had got to the front of the queue, and mutter darkly that there was one rule for the likes of him and one rule for everyone else.

That’s what happens to a garden party if you just let anyone in. The whole thing goes to the dogs. We need tighter buffet border controls.

“I had . . . a ghastly nightmare,” John Humphrys told The Oldie lunch. He was interrogating the PM. “I said: ‘It’s all lies, isn’t it’.” Yes, said the PM. “I said: ‘You’re going to resign’.” Yes, he replied. “I awoke and thought: ‘How awful’. My whole career would have vanished.” Gordon Brown take heart. If this man stalks your nightmares, at least you also feature in his.

Joanna Lumley was also at The Oldie lunch. Did her personal glamour win the day for the Gurkhas? “I don’t think I was very glamorous,” she told us. “I’ve since had people queueing up to tell me that I don’t look as bad in real life as I did in the pictures.” We suspect these “people” were men. In bars.

A representative of the People, or at least of this column, was in Portcullis House, Westminster, on Tuesday and saw at least one MP fall over after rainwater cascaded through the roof of the £235 million building. They appeared to be the victims of a parliamentary leak.

Lord Rooker, the new chairman of the Food Standards Agency, was lightly grilled by a committee of MPs this week before being served up to the public. There were question marks over his neutrality, as he is a former Labour minister. He insisted that he was entirely independent. “I’ve never owned or used a supermarket loyalty card,” he said. We suspect his other half does the shopping.

Is there no end to his talents?

The Face: Rufus Wainwright

After releasing six albums, starring in films and resurrecting the songbook of Judy Garland, you may as well write an opera in French . . . if you’re Rufus Wainwright.

“The best songwriter in the world”, according to Sir Elton John, Wainwright was born in New York to Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle, the singers, and performed on stage from the age of 6.

A self-confessed egomaniac, he once went blind while living in the Chelsea Hotel, New York, addicted to crystal meth. Prima Donna premieres tonight at the Manchester International Festival.

Postscript

A better-looking element of this column spoke to Daniel Radcliffe at the Harry Potter premiere. “I’ve been out with a couple of women who are slightly older,” he said. Now, however, he finds that girls his age are more mature. “So I’m widening the field,” he concluded, magnanimously.

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