ONE of my best friends and her family came for lunch last Sunday and I chatted with her 15-year-old daughter about what she wanted to do when she finished her GCSEs.
She only has one aim — and that is to be famous. On the telly, an influencer, a model, anything.
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Her older brother joked that what she should really do is try her hand at politics to get noticed.
At first we laughed.
Then I saw Matt Hancock on the TV after landing a £45,000 deal for Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
In the penultimate episode before tonight’s final, viewers saw expert interrogators describe him as “good at lying” and a “f***ing arrogant w***er”.
Tell us something we didn’t know.
This week at the Covid Inquiry it was clear that was pretty much the impression quite a few people had of him when he was Health Secretary.
He was accused of wanting to play God at the height of the pandemic by personally deciding “who should live and who should die” if hospitals became overwhelmed.
The then-NHS chief Simon Stevens said ministers were warned in February 2020 that as many as 840,000 people could perish — sparking the “unresolved but fundamental ethical debate” about who should be prioritised for NHS care.
Hancock argued that he — rather than the doctors or public — should decide who should be prioritised.
Watching him on a TV reality show while he is at the centre of an inquiry into the biggest health disaster in living memory is sickening.
Instead of seeing politics as a vocation, a passion, he used his title of former Health Secretary as a stepping stone to fame and stardom.
First, he ditched his West Suffolk constituents to pocket £320,000 for an appearance on I’m A Celebrity.
Hancock hoped people would see a different side to him, after he had been caught by The Sun flouting his own Covid lockdown rules with married aide Gina Coladangelo.
He had made what is now a typical career move away from Westminster, as more and more MPs see politics as the new route to showbiz.
From George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother and Oona King on Dancing On Ice to Penny Mordaunt on Splash and Vince Cable on Strictly — even “tractor porn” ex-MP Neil Parish is now on Channel 4 reality show Banged Up.
Useful nugget on CV
I’m A Celebrity, meanwhile, has attracted former jungle campmates Nadine Dorries, Kezia Dugdale, Edwina Currie and Lembit Opik.
Now Nigel Farage is heading Down Under.
Whatever happened to the serious politicians, who ended their careers on the back-benches?
It seems that the bigger a failure you are, and the more disgraced, the more coveted you are by TV producers.
Serving in Westminster used to be the pinnacle of someone’s achievement in life.
Leaving it for the bright lights of showbiz erodes the trust we have in those at the top.
If you don’t want to take such a position of power seriously, or stick at it through the good and the bad, then don’t do it in the first place.
A role in government should be far more than a useful nugget on a showbiz CV.
And politics is too important a job to be played at.
Unfriend it like Beckham
DAVID BECKHAM clearly knows you should always back the winning team.
Having once worked with Prince Harry on the Invictus Games, he has distanced himself since the prince stepped back as a senior royal.
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Now Becks has accepted an invite for dinner with King Charles to discuss being a charity ambassador for the Prince’s Foundation.
Maybe he will finally get that knighthood he’s so desperate for.
RYANAIR often gets bad press. But this week I flew with them from Manchester to Alicante in Spain and they were brilliant.
Well, I got a seat, was served a drink and we landed 20 minutes early.
I also had the misfortune to go on an Avanti train from London Euston back home to Manchester.
It was so overcrowded that many of us were left standing or sitting in the vestibules, and there was no food or drinks served because staff were worried it would get chucked over passengers as people climbed over them.
The journey was delayed by ten minutes and cost £17 more than my flight to a different country.
Surely it’s time the Government stepped in to get our railway services back on track.
A no to Oliver olives
I LOVE a good cookery show but my hubby The Geordie moans that I never actually rustle up any of the meals – and he finds all TV chefs annoying.
But I thought I’d won the battle with Jamie’s 5 Ingredient Meals.
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I promised I’d make something from the show if we watched it together. and said Jamie Oliver is a “down-to-earth” bloke.
All fine until the TV chef put olives and roasted peppers into a sandwich and announced it would “take the classic sausage sarnie to the Costa Del Jamie”.
The Geordie looked at me smugly, as I swiftly turned over.
Million giggles
CHARLOTTE PEART did what I have done plenty of times, and ignored an email from the National Lottery, presuming it was to tell her she’d won £3.
When she eventually got round to it, she found out she’d won £1million.
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That was in 2018 but new audio of her ringing the Lotto call centre reveals she couldn’t stop giggling and said: “I think I’m going to cry.”
Who can blame her?
She’s used the cash to set up a business, buy a home and spend more time with her family.
It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
THERE’S no need to “remember, remember the fifth of November” – these days most local bonfires have been stopped due to the health and safety brigade.
Yet any idiot can go and buy some fireworks or a packet of sparklers.
Just doesn’t make sense, does it?
XL dog had me scared
I HAD the misfortune to come across an XL bully last month when I took my boxer Layla to the vet’s.
I ended up sitting opposite him in the waiting room.
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He was a chunky beast – complete with cropped ears and a chain collar – and after 30 seconds of staring at Layla, he went for her.
He growled and lurched ferociously towards her. It was absolutely terrifying.
I instinctively, but stupidly, stood in front of Layla as the bully growled at us both before we got out of there.
The owner did absolutely nothing, apart from tighten his grip on the dog’s harness.
He didn’t look at me, speak, flinch or react in any way.
If Layla had even barked at someone, I’d have been mortified and apologised, before removing her from the situation.
Now a decision has been made on the future of XL bullies.
From the end of this year, breeding, selling, advertising, rehoming, abandoning and allowing one to stray will be illegal.
Owners will need to put them on a lead and muzzle them.
But the problem is: Will owners like the one I came across actually play by the rules?
Waste . . . singer in ad
THE battle of the Christmas adverts has begun – and Sainsbury’s appeared to have bagged themselves a winner after snapping up Rick Astley, everyone’s favourite 80s pop star (well, he’s mine).
But in the ad – all about what Santa really eats for Christmas – Rick simply says: “How about some cheese?” as he stands in the chiller aisle.
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Not a single tune.
What a waste of talent.
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