Wimbledon

Has grace-and-favour accommodation now fallen from grace – and favour, too? In recent days, we have learned that both our head of state and our (likely) head of government are giving up the free homes that come with the job. The King has said he will not live at Buckingham Palace once major refurbishment works are completed next year. His heir has let it be known that he won’t live there either. The monarch is very happy living at Clarence House, just as his mother was when she became Queen in 1952. Back then, Winston Churchill formally advised the Sovereign that she had to move into the Palace. No modern prime minister would dream of telling the Sovereign where to sleep, least of all one who plans to follow his example. Andy Burnham has said that he will not live at No.

Absolute mayor Andy Burnham wants more devolution and elected mayors. Do voters want that? – Since 2001 there have been 55 referendums on whether to establish the post of elected mayor. Only in 17 cases was there a majority in favour. – The towns and districts keenest on having an elected mayor were Middlesbrough (84% in favour), Croydon (80%) and Mansfield (70%). – The areas least keen on an elected mayor were Guildford (81% against), Bath (79%) and West Devon (77%). Ratings game Which attracts the biggest TV audience in Britain: Wimbledon or the World Cup? – England’s opening match in this World Cup, vs Croatia, attracted a peak audience of 15.4m. England’s quarter-final defeat to France in 2022 had an audience of 19.4m. – This compares with the 8.

There is a small section of the Labour party which I greatly admire – those on the party’s right, often from working-class backgrounds, who unrelentingly fight the party’s left without being crypto-Tories. They are more effective than the Conservative right, being more disciplined and less voluble. For decades, they have taken on the Bennite/Corbynite/Islamist/woke tendency and its paler offshoots, such as Ed Miliband. They want genuine economic and social gains for working people rather than ‘saving the planet’ or ‘decolonising’. One such is Pat McFadden, now billed as the third most powerful person in the new government.

In this summer of sporting dramas, every patriotic sports fan likes to think he’s done his bit to help. I went up to Manchester with my brother last Thursday and in the evening we found ourselves in an Indian restaurant with the England wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow at the next table. I feel sure it was Edward’s and my manly cries of ‘Good luck, Jonny’ as he left that helped him bat so brilliantly for his 99 not out. Though I suppose it could have been the vindaloo that fired him up. My major influence on the Ashes series came a few days earlier, when I bumped into the Australian all-time-great batsman and scourge of England, Steve Smith. This was on the balcony of the All England Club at Wimbledon, where he was having a quiet chat with some friends.

Now that the weakest Wimbledon since 1973 — the year of the boycott — is over, a few thoughts about Pam Shriver’s recent revelations that her coach Don Candy, deceased, was also her lover. Candy was fifty at the time, while Pam was seventeen, which in my book made Candy a lucky guy, assuming it was legal. The age of consent varies from place to place, and the only time I had to defend myself was when an irate father, whose twenty-eight-year-old daughter I had dated, rang me early in the morning and complained about me being seventy-two. “There is no age limit as far as being too old,” I told him. He rudely hung up on me. But before I go on about Pam Shriver and her oldie coach, a few comments are in order about how Oprah has taken over tennis and even Wimbledon.