More jokes, less sex please 007!

As speculation mounts over the identity of the new 007, Bond girl Madeline Smith has some ideas on how to improve the franchise. “I would like to see the return of more subtle, gentle humour. Those wonderful 1970s asides – we all need to cheer up with a little laugh,” she told me in the GB News green room this week. 

Smith, 74, played Miss Caruso, whose dress was unzipped by Roger Moore’s magnetic watch in Live and Let Die. Their bed scene was filmed under the beady eye of Moore’s wife Luisa Mattioli. Smith wants to see less “heavy, aggressive sex” in future Bond films. “Roger wouldn’t have it,” she told me.

Beware Angela!

Brexiteer Nigel Farage, Tory MP Sir Graham Brady and Labour MP John Spellar were among 200 guests at the Banqueting House for the launch of Michael Ashcroft’s biography of Angela Rayner, Red Queen?. Ashcroft paid tribute to the “inspirational” deputy Labour leader, saying: “She should be proud of how far she has come and makes British politics much more interesting, as does Lee Anderson and George Galloway.”

That’s where the kind words ended. “If anyone wants to know what life under a Labour government might be, just try to picture John Prescott in a skirt, being – in the words of Ken Clarke – a bloody difficult woman,” he said. 

Jilly’s dream gardener

The author Jilly Cooper – whose novel Rivals is being made into a film – lives near Bisley, Gloucestershire, surrounded by family, and accompanied by two creaky hips, which limit her gardening. “What I need,” she tells Yours magazine, “is a gay resident gardener. He could look after the grounds by day, and not bother me at night.” Sounds like the beginning of another bonkbuster, Jilly!

Arise Lord Tatchell?

I bumped into gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell in Westminster this week. When I went to shake hands, he grabbed my forearm with a vigorous tug. “It’s the Tatchell shake,” he explained. “I don’t shake hands and have had just one cold in six years.” During Tatchell’s years campaigning, he has been attacked 300 times, and his flat has been targeted 50 times. But he has never accepted any honour. Surely a peerage is overdue, I told him, as we gazed up at Big Ben’s tower. “I’m not sure my friends would forgive me,” he said.

Marina doesn’t hold back

A review in this week’s New Statesman of a new book Downward Spiral by John Bowers KC notes that Bowers – Master of Oxford University’s Brasenose College – describes Boris Johnson’s “court” in 10 Downing St as “‘corrupt and/or immoral’ and very bad for government”, and that Johnson himself was a “bad ‘un” who “posed a particular challenge to the system”.

Who penned this excoriating account of the former PM’s time in power? Why, it’s Marina Wheeler, described by the Statesman as a “barrister, mediator and author”. There was no space to say that she is also the ex-wife of Johnson.

Guardian oversight

The fall-out from The Guardian’s publication of the Garrick club’s all-male membership list continues after MI6 chief Richard Moore and Cabinet secretary Simon Case quit as a result. One member complains that journalist Amelia Gentleman, who exposed the list, did not declare the membership of her own father-in-law Stanley Johnson. 

He also speculates that the news might trigger a surge in men trying to join the Garrick if only to escape their wives. “It wouldn’t surprise me, though you don’t apply to join but have to be proposed, seconded and elected,” he says. Mere details!

Liz’s Hollywood ending

Whatever next? The Wall Street Journal has secured a chat with former prime minister Liz Truss for its own documentary about her seven weeks in office. Tory MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and ex-Tory MP David Gauke are also said to be taking part. A source close to Truss confirmed she had an interview with the newspaper booked in for this week. Ready? Lights! Camera! Liz!

A new calling?

It was my own fault. I refreshed my X profile this week, with a new photo of me reporting from Westminster Hall, clutching a microphone and notebook. “You look like an archbishop, Chris,” tweeted Tory MP Sir Michael Fabricant. “Christopher Hope would make an excellent name for a bishop,” added Sir Harry Flashman (possibly, a made-up name). Andrew Williams had a better idea. “Wedding registrar maybe?” he said. Bless you all!

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