EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Lord Alli gave Keir minister £420 for wellies
Does Waheed Alli’s munificence know no bounds?
I ask because, as it emerges that the Labour peer has donated tens of thousands of pounds to seven Cabinet ministers, an intriguing photograph of an eighth – Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – comes to my attention.
Taken last December, three months after he assumed his rural affairs role in opposition, it shows Reed at a Wiltshire farm, sporting a pair of wellies. Not, of course, the moulded PVC sort, but leather-lined ‘Chasseur’ boots, with full-length zip, costing a princely £420.
They are ‘hand crafted by one single master boot maker’, according to Le Chameau, the firm that makes them, one of whose directors is… Lord Alli.
Reed declines to comment but a chum confirms the wellies were indeed a gift from Alli. He claims that, at the time, they cost £270 while the threshold for declarations in the Register of Members’ Interests is £300.
A handy gift when wading into the muck.
A picture taken last December shows Steve Reed (right) at a Wiltshire farm, sporting a pair of wellies
The wellies in question are leather-lined ‘Chasseur’ boots, with full-length zip, costing £420
Baby No2 on way for delighted Blandfords
An eventful year for the Duke of Marlborough, during which he’s parted from his delightful second wife, Edla, is ending with an exultant bang.
Not only is the Duke, 68, enjoying the company of an old chumette, Doune Murray, but I can disclose that his son George, the Marquess of Blandford, 32, and daughter-in-law, Camilla, 37, are soon to welcome a second child.
With a hand tenderly on her bump, Camilla is snapped in a Railey Berry dress by Beulah. The couple have a four-year-old daughter, Lady Olympia.
If the impending arrival is a boy, he will eventually inherit Blenheim Palace, the family seat in Oxfordshire.
George, the Marquess of Blandford, and Camilla are soon to welcome a second child. Camilla is snapped in a Railey Berry dress by Beulah
(Very) modern manners
Some joyous news, at last, for Prince Andrew. His favourite London nightclub, Tramp, where he allegedly first encountered a young Virginia Roberts, is about to re-open.
And, even better, its new owner, Luca Maggiora, is ensuring that photography is almost completely banned.
Even where it’s permitted within the club, which has been lovingly refurbished, with the star signs in its zodiacal ceiling picked out in silver leaf, members must be discreet.
They should, says Maggiora, ‘use their phones as if they were at a dinner party: with a slight sense of embarrassment’.
As if that isn’t enough to put some snap into Andrew’s celery, Maggiora has done away with the dance floor, explaining that people now prefer to ‘dance with their friends around their table’. No sweat!
Modern Rees-Mogg on Substack
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s decision to embrace the modern digital world and launch a blog on self-publishing platform Substack seems to have raised eyebrows within the former Cabinet minister’s own family.
‘Jacob on Substack – how modern,’ observes his sister Annunziata Rees-Mogg drily on social media.
When asked if he was using pen and paper to draft his thoughts, she replies: ‘Quill and parchment, I believe.’
Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured) has started a blog on Substack
His sister Annunziata Rees-Mogg (pictured) has mocked his ‘modern’ ways
Marsden moves from Sandringham
What a cheek! The man who helped make royal residences money-spinners for ‘The Firm’ is abandoning King Charles for a less salubrious castle.
Garry Marsden, who is visitor enterprise manager at the King’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, is leaving to become head of the Inverness Castle Experience when it opens next year.
Before joining Sandringham, Garry was visitor enterprise manager at Balmoral, the monarch’s private estate in Aberdeenshire, which is also open to tourists.
Mitchell’s recurring nightmare
David Mitchell blames his wife, Only Connect host Victoria Coren Mitchell, for afflicting him with a new superstition.
‘My wife told me that it is bad luck to put new shoes on a table or a bed,’ the comedian says.
‘Now, if I am ever going on holiday and I am taking new shoes, I pack the suitcase on the floor.’ Mitchell, who plays a quirky amateur sleuth in new BBC drama Ludwig, admits he is a mass of neuroses.
‘I don’t like recurring numbers. In cricket, there is a thing that if you are on 111 or any multiple of that, it is supposed to be bad luck.
‘I used to watch quite a lot of cricket so that got into my head and now, if I am reading a book, I won’t leave the bookmark in on page 111.’
David Mitchell (left) blames his wife, Only Connect host Victoria Coren Mitchell (right), for afflicting him with a new superstition – putting new shows on a table or bed
Dunbar girl and a love mystery
Line of Duty star Adrian Dunbar was shocked when his daughter told him she’d got engaged to a builder she met on dating app Bumble.
Singer and actress Madeleine Dunbar, 36, proposed to Callum Lazenby-Todd on London’s Southbank after less than a year of dating – and while pregnant with their child.
Sadly, it appears that their romance is no longer ‘cooking with gas’, as her father’s character in the hit BBC crime drama, Superintendent Ted Hastings, might say.
Madeleine and Callum didn’t get married and now they’ve stopped following each other on social media. Madeleine, who used to post photos of her beau prolifically online, hasn’t shared a shot of him since January last year.
Hinting at a very personal struggle of late, Madeleine posted a recent video of herself running on a treadmill with a pal, writing in the caption: ‘Better to fall off the treadmill than fall off the wagon.
‘Having a community of sober queens around who inspire me is such a blessing.’ She added the hashtags: ‘sobriety’, ‘recovery’ and ‘addict’.
Madeleine declines to comment.
Line of Duty star Adrian Dunbar (right) with his daughter Madeleine Dunbar (left)
Fearne’s finances in a Happy Place
Well-being is certainly leading to a healthy bank balance for former television presenter Fearne Cotton.
The company she uses to channel earnings from her Happy Place podcast and accompanying festival increased its assets to £1.2 million last year.
Fearne Cotton (pictured) poses in Chiswick Gardens with her recently debuted novel, Scripted
Accounts disclose assets had risen from £431,000 in 2022.
The broadcaster, 43, reflected earlier this year on her decision to leave BBC Radio 1 in 2015 for the good of her health, saying so much had changed ‘for the better’ in the nine years since.
Fearne – who has two children with her husband, Jesse Wood, son of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood – set up the firm in 2018. She recently published her debut novel, Scripted.
‘I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity and dived head-first into writing my first novel, which I feel just sort of feel mind blown about,’ she gushed.
