Londoner’s Diary: Nicky Morgan calls for Lords gender equality
Peer Nicky Morgan says women members of the House of Lords should be able to pass on their titles to their spouses just as men do. “A lord’s wife becomes a lady”, Morgan, right, told us last night, and yet “you don’t pass a title on to a same sex partner, nor a baroness to her husband”.
The former education secretary became Baroness Morgan of Cotes in 2020. Morgan was speaking at the launch of Peter Cardwell’s book The Secret Lives of Special Advisors last night.
Former Spad Cardwell, who now works in media, thanked ex-No 10 chief Dominic Cummings for firing him in 2020, which meant space to write.
Afterwards, some went to the Conservative V&A summer party, but one said the best ticket was a Rupert Murdoch bash at the Serpentine. Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and other ministers attended.
Leader for our times
BORIS Johnson visited President Zelensky in Kyiv on Friday, and gifted the Ukrainian president Queen of Our Times, a new biography of Elizabeth II by Robert Hardman.
This morning, a pleasantly surprised Hardman told us Zelensky reminds him of the Queen’s father George VI during WWII, tasked with inspiring his nation. “If Zelensky does read the book one day, I hope he will appreciate the similarities”, Hardman said, though admitted: “For the moment I think he’s got more important things to do”.
Johnson was reading The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder, which claims Russian bots influenced Brexit.
Marbles deal? It’s a piece of cake ...
Writer Victoria Hislop, whose bestselling novels are set in Greece, called for the return of the Parthenon Marbles in a protest at the British Museum on Saturday. She held a cake to mark the 13th birthday of the Acropolis Museum in Athens, where campaigners want the marbles to rest. “It’s only a matter of time”, she said online. Last week BM chair George Osborne said there is a “deal to be done” on the stones.
Paramount hits the blue carpet at new Soho spot
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Acting royalty came to London for the launch of Paramount+ at Outernet London near Tottenham Court Road last night. Viola Davis, Gillian Anderson and Michelle Pfeiffer posed on the blue carpet. Naomie Harris, who was also there, said this morning that she based her role in new project The Man Who Fell To Earth, which is inspired by the David Bowie film, on her own single mother. Also attending were Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo and Bill Nighy, while Sylvester Stallone pleased Rocky fans with his air punches.
