ANDREW PIERCE: Nadhim Zahawi sells up – so is he headed for the Lords?
When former Tory cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi defected to Reform UK last month, he denied he’d been offered a peerage. But has he?
I hear Zahawi, briefly chancellor under Boris Johnson, is selling his family home in Stratford-upon-Avon, the constituency he represented for 14 years.
Zahawi’s sprawling mansion is on the market for £1.3million and comes with a stable block – which came to public attention in 2013 when he claimed £4,000 in parliamentary expenses for the cost of heating it. Zahawi said the claim was in error, paid the money back and apologised.
The sale of his house is a clear sign that Zahawi has no plans to fight his old seat, which fell to the Lib Dems at the last election after he stepped down.
Nadhim Zahawi’s sprawling mansion is on the market for £1.3million and comes with a stable block – which came to public attention in 2013 when he claimed £4,000 in parliamentary expenses for the cost of heating it
When Reform leader Nigel Farage sets up his own shadow cabinet, I hear Zahawi – who was denied a peerage by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch – will be given the foreign affairs portfolio.
It’s a job he can do easily from the House of Lords, as David Cameron proved when Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister.
After the defection of Suella Braverman to Reform, one Tory strategist was overheard crowing in parliament: ‘Nadhim Zahawi, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman. A case of all your egos in one basket.’
Don-nil to the Arsenal
Most world leaders call our PM through a sophisticated communications unit at Downing Street. Not Donald Trump.
As Keir Starmer told the Matt Forde pod – cast: ‘He phones me on my mobile. One time we were halfway through the Arsenal – Paris Saint-Germain game. I took the call and my son was slipping me pieces of paper telling me the score.’
Woke waste of the week: When will the BBC learn the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) gravy train has hit the buffers?
The corporation is advertising for a Creative Diversity Business Advisor with ‘applied expertise in DEI across protected characteristics and underrepresented groups’ to ‘plan, track and deliver assigned Creative Diversity projects’.
How about hiring journalists who aren’t afraid to say that six million Jews – not just ‘people’ – were murdered in the Holocaust?
The Greens’ Hannah Spencer is the ‘blue-collar candidate’ in this month’s Gorton and Denton by-election because she is ‘into greyhounds’, claims hard-Left commentator Aaron Bastani.
When locals realise she is campaigning to ban the traditional working-class pursuit of greyhound racing, the blue-collar vote is likely to run a mile.
Former academic Matt Goodwin, Reform’s candidate in the contest, says: ‘Most people criticising me are nerds.
The last thing I want is to be at some dinner party table with Nick Robinson and Mary Beard.
I’d rather shoot myself in the head.’ TV Classics professor Beard hits back: ‘Hang on, I’m not THAT bad! Nerds sometimes have a point.’ No word from the BBC’s Robinson.
WOKE WASTE OF THE WEEK: When will the BBC learn the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) gravy train has hit the buffers?
The corporation is advertising for a Creative Diversity Business Advisor with ‘applied expertise in DEI across protected characteristics and underrepresented groups’ to ‘plan, track and deliver assigned Creative Diversity projects’.
How about hiring journalists who aren’t afraid to say that six million Jews – not just ‘people’ – were murdered in the Holocaust?
The Greens’ Hannah Spencer is the ‘blue-collar candidate’ in this month’s Gorton and Denton by-election because she is ‘into greyhounds’, claims hard-Left commentator Aaron Bastani.
When locals realise she is campaigning to ban the traditional working-class pursuit of greyhound racing, the blue-collar vote is likely to run a mile.
Reform’s Matt Goodwin said: ‘The last thing I want is to be at some dinner party table with Nick Robinson and Mary Beard (pictured). I’d rather shoot myself in the head’
Former academic Matt Goodwin, Reform’s candidate in the contest, says: ‘Most people criticising me are nerds.
‘The last thing I want is to be at some dinner party table with Nick Robinson and Mary Beard. I’d rather shoot myself in the head.’
TV Classics professor Beard hits back: ‘Hang on, I’m not THAT bad! Nerds sometimes have a point.’
No word from the BBC’s Robinson.
The uncommon people
The Commons Select Commit – tee on International Aid is ‘heading out of Westminster to gather insights on what the public thinks about UK aid’. Where do the MPs hope to glean the common view? Well, their evidence session will be held at impeccably metropolitan.
King’s College, London, with ‘an audience comprising politics and development students’. The panellists include charity executives specialising in aid and feminism from Trinidad, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, an Independent journalist and a member of an aid think tank. Classic!
