Rishi Sunak has often been admired for his choice of footwear, wearing a striking pair of Timberland boots on a trip to Kent to talk about small boats on Monday. Stop the boots, some quipped.
Who helps the PM choose his shoes? The answer could be close to home. A spy tells The Londoner that Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty was spotted in Mayfair recently getting her husband a pair of men’s shoes from a high-end store.
Sunak has modelled quite a few stylish brands, including £490 Prada loafers he wore when campaigning to be Tory leader. He also wore £450 blue suede shoes from Tod’s, which has an outlet on Old Bond Street, to a G20 summit in Bali this year, and charmed Japanese PM Fumio Kishida by wearing socks branded with his favourite baseball team on a trip there with Murty last month.
We asked No 10 about the PM’s shoe-shopping habits, but they held their tongues.
Actor’s Harry role turns heads
A star turn for Laurence Dobiesz, the actor who plays Prince Harry in Sky News’s reconstruction of the Duke’s phone-hacking trial. Dobiesz has many talents: he was in Outlander, and wrote a novel with his wife Olivia Poulet, right, star of The Thick Of It. He’s versatile too: we notice he is a natural blond with light stubble, but appeared yesterday with ginger coif and matching beard. Sky didn’t show us if he also has the bald patch.
Visitor comes to Uxbridge
An unfamiliar face has been seen in Uxbridge recently. Boris Johnson, the local MP, has been doing lots of international speaking gigs of late, but also found time to film in his west London constituency, blasting Mayor Sadiq Khan over police cuts outside a local station. Some pointed out the cuts were partly due to Johnson’s own time at City Hall.
The ex-PM had been predicted to lose Uxbridge, with suggestions that he might try a “chicken run” and stand instead in his old safe seat of Henley, near where he’s just bought a house. Whether he’d be allowed to move is not clear. However, a new poll by Lord Ashcroft has given Johnson a chance of winning Uxbridge after all. He’s been down and out before…
Walk out on the airwaves
London’s night owls were suddenly abandoned by BBC radio at midnight. As the clock struck 12, BBC London host Jo Good left the chair with most of her crew as part of a two-day strike by local radio journalists over service cuts. “That is it from us, from the team,” said Good. There was then an awkward pause of about a minute before the news kicked in. Good’s final hour was filled by a pre-recorded programme.
Rita shows us her moves
Singer Rita Ora gave followers a peek at her workout routine yesterday, saying she listens to her upcoming album during Pilates. Last night at Mayfair’s Nobu Hotel, tennis matriarch Judy Murray and designer Martha Sitwell, who is said to be dating Charles Saatchi, were at the Gelida devices summer summit, and Talitha Wing, who is in the new Full Monty TV show, was at a BFI screening.
