Pen Farthing, the owner of animal charity Nowzad who the Government controversially helped evacuate from Afghanistan last year, has said he is working on a documentary and book about the experience.
Farthing returned to England on a chartered plane carrying about 200 dogs and cats during the Taliban takeover last August. Downing Street denied that Boris and Carrie Johnson had intervened, despite claims that they were involved. “Nowzad’s name is still being used as a political football to deflect from the failings of the British withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Farthing wrote online. “Operation Ark was a success” he said.
Farthing went to Ukraine last month in a van laden with pet food, calling the situation there “heartbreaking”.
Bea praises the power of stories
Princess Beatrice gave the Oscar’s prize for best book for under fives to author Chris Haughton at the Ivy club last night, praising the “power these stories give to young people”. The event remembers Oscar Ashton, son of former Standard journalist James, who tragically died in 2012. Beatrice had first baby Sienna with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi last Septemper, and told us her family are “reading all of the shortlist on circulation”. Starting her young.
Gemma Arterton and Morwenna Banks larked about on the red carpet at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for Sky’s Up Next event. Also there were fellow actors Rose Leslie and Theo James, and comedian Greg Davies, who said he was writing a new series of his sitcom, which meant “smashing things up in my home every day”. Actor Anne-Marie Duff danced with writer Beth Steel at the launch party of their play House of Shades, and presenter Laura Whitmore and Lisa Dwan went to the Oscar’s Book Prize. Jourdan Dunn celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Royal Orak at the Audemars Piguet event at KOKO theatre.
Writer is sick of the thickness of it
ARMANDO Iannucci hasn’t found recent politics very funny, instead getting “physically quite worked up”, The Thick of It satirist told a British Library event last night. Iannucci finds the “government by-Instagram” of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss “frightening”, and thinks No 10 is “run by 24-year-olds”. In that case, who’ll write the jokes now?
Ivo calls for Boris to get a trim
Boris Johnson’s brother-in-law thinks it’s time for the PM to cut his famous hair. As the polls slide, “the briefest encounter with a comb” could mean “tens of tousands of votes”, suggests Ivo Dawnay, husband of Rachel Johnson, in the Spectator magazine. Dawnay says Johnson’s policies leave him with a “deep-rooted despair”, and fears his advice won’t be heeded. “The hair is here to stay for the duration,” he warns.
