ANDREW PIERCE: A Westminster farce – starring Dom and Boris

ANDREW PIERCE: A Westminster farce – starring Dom and Boris

Lloyd Evans, who co-wrote a scurrilous play about the various sex scandals at The Spectator magazine when Boris Johnson was its editor, called Who’s The Daddy?, is back with a new production.

Dom – The Play is an often hilarious take on Boris’s tumultuous relationship with his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who was sacked in 2020 after allegations he had briefed against the PM.

Who’s The Daddy? was named Best New Comedy in the 2006 What’s On Stage Awards, but Evans was clearly feeling less inspired when it came to his second Boris-focused outing.

He hired additional writers at rate of £50 per gag from the online platform The Comedy Crowd. 

Their jokes include: ‘Joe Biden: the only man who can make a speech with his brain and his mouth in different time-zones.’ On Boris’s short-lived successor. ‘Everyone can remember where they were when Liz Truss was Prime Minister.’

Dom — The Play is an often hilarious take on Boris’s tumultuous relationship with his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who was sacked in 2020 after allegations he had briefed against the PM

Or my personal favourite, a dig at Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer: ‘If he was any more wooden he’d be IKEA Starmer.’

It will be a case of ‘Hard hats on!’ if Cummings and Boris both decide to attend the opening night at The Other Palace theatre in Westminster on Tuesday, February 21.

Is it no-go for BoJo in Henley?

The news that Boris Johnson is house-hunting in Oxfordshire has fuelled rumours he is set to abandon his marginal Uxbridge seat and run again in his former constituency of Henley.

But the existing Tory MP John Howell, 67, asked if he will stand in at the next election, said: ‘It will be a decision that I make at a later date.’

Quizzed about a Boris comeback, he replied: ‘I sincerely hope not.’

Therese Coffey’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has corrected the record over the sum spent on taxis by ministers and civil servants in her department. The figure of £46,668 for 2019 has now been upgraded to a whopping £143,210.25. Did they discover a wodge of expense receipts in the back of a filing cabinet?

If Kinnock’s Marmite, what’s Keir?

Lord (Neil) Kinnock, who was Labour leader when John Major unexpectedly won the 1992 General Election, told a radio station at the weekend: ‘I was a Marmite figure, John Major was a marmalade figure.’ 

The question is: what kind of breakfast spread is his Labour heir Keir Starmer?

Lord (Neil) Kinnock, who was Labour leader when John Major unexpectedly won the 1992 General Election, told a radio station at the weekend: ‘I was a Marmite figure, John Major was a marmalade figure’

Quote of the week: Lord Hague, the former Tory leader, on the current Labour leader: ‘Keir Starmer’s team are currently interesting because they are judged to be close to power, rather than being close to power because they are judged to be interesting.’

Oxford-educated Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor, clearly never shone in geography at school. In a speech to the Lefty Fabian Society in North London last month she referred not once but twice to the Hornsey wind farm development, which, she said, would be good news for North London.

Only problem? The wind farm is in Hornsea, 200 miles from Hornsey, on the Yorkshire coast. 

Shadow Foreign Secretary and Tottenham Labour MP David Lammy issued a typically elliptical statement after the killing of Tyre Nichols by five police officers in Memphis last month.

‘It’s traumatic, exhausting and tragic to watch footage of yet another black man killed by those whose duty it is to protect,’ he wrote. ‘Police violence against minorities must finally end.’

No mention of the fact the five officers were black, or that in Memphis at least, black people are in the majority, making up 64 per cent of the population. 

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