Diary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jul/23/hugh-muir-diary-ed-miliband

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• Enemies to the left of him, foes to the right. Nick Clegg for soulmate. It can't be fun being Big Dave right now. And things barely seem better with the unmasking of another potentially rebellious parliamentary grouping: Deep Blue. According to the writer Sonia Purnell, this group of Tory MPs has been meeting in private, with many pondering the position of their leader, who doesn't seem particularly Tory, and the charms of London mayor Boris Johnson, who seems popular and Tory to the core. The latest meeting of 20 MPs was apparently hosted by John Hayes, the minister for business, innovation and skills. With multiple problems piling up and prospects for the next election looking bleak, consensus from there was that Dave will soldier on for the immediate future, but Boris is popular and almost ready to launch so the PM must look to his laurels. Worrying, but no gentlemen's club coup. Attendees had to write a cheque for wine and the canapés in the kitchen.

• What price loyalty? And things are little better in the Green party. Twenty two councillors voted for a Labour motion in support of same-sex marriages, as is Green party policy. What to do about the one who didn't? Cllr Christina Summers, says the party in a statement, has a longstanding faith belief which opposes marriage equality. "Greens believe she is entitled to hold her view," says Phelim MacCafferty, deputy leader of Brighton and Hove city council, "but this does not reflect the position, spirit and track record of the Green party in extending human and civil rights for all social groups irrespective of sexual orientation or on other grounds. Green councillors will be meeting to discuss this issue soon," he says. The party does not whip, but sexual equality is a flagship policy. So a good few members want her chucked out all the same.

• Just three days before the arrival of the Olympic torch at its final destination. It has been the length and breadth, through cities and hamlets, hill and dale. Still, it was always a risk taking the Olympic flame through the radical heartlands of Stoke Newington in north-east London. As the procession wended its way on Saturday, the bus festooned with the logos of sponsors Lloyds TSB was greeted with cries of "pay your taxes!" And the biggest cheer, alas, was reserved not for the flame-carrier but for an elderly cyclist who had infiltrated the parade with a placard attacking Barclays Bank.

• To Grantchester, meanwhile, where Lord and Lady Archer recently hosted an evening of music on behalf of the Cambridge charity Camsight. Jeffrey was in fine form, bouncing up to give a largely irrelevant speech that ignored the charity but lauded his long-suffering wife on their 46th wedding anniversary. One hoped the musical choices would have given him pause for thought. Bela Bartok's Choruses for Children's and Female Voices includes Ne láttalak volna!, which meditates on a woman's regrets for ever meeting her lover or mate, who has now abandoned her. And Edward Wickham's choir from St Catharine's College Cambridge did much to convey Bartok's atmospheric sense of loss and feeling of desolation. But twas all the same to Jeffrey: unable, one assumes, to recall events that did indeed cause Mary "feelings of desolation". She sat with a rictus smile throughout.

• Finally, accounts of demands made by overpampered celebrities have become the stuff of legend. Recently the singer Nicki Minaj was said to have refused to leave her festival dressing room because the grass outside was too long. She denies it. "I hope whoever made that lie up chokes to death," she said. And yet she would merely have been following a tradition. In the new book Abbey Road – The Best Studio in the World, studio executive Ken Townsend recalls an encounter with John Lennon. "Mr Townsend, we have a very serious complaint," said the singer. "The toilet rolls in this place are too hard and shiny. Not only that, but every roll has got EMI Ltd stamped on it." It was his moment. "I walked out of there with my legs shaking, sent someone out to get some softer stuff – and replaced every toilet roll in the place." His place in history. Let's hear it for John, Paul, George, Ringo and Ken.

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