PETERBOROUGH

Chequers flogs the family silver

In the week that Rishi Sunak declared that he had earned over £4million in three years, the Prime Minister’s official country home was flogging off the contents of its attic to pay for repair and maintenance. Auction house Bonhams says only “unused items” which were “taking up valuable space” at Chequers were included in the sale by the house’s trustees, which raised nearly £68,000 “specifically for the repair and maintenance of the house and its collections”.

An Italian Trapani gilt-copper and coral-mounted candlestick from the late 17th/early 18th century was the top lot, achieving £17,850 against a pre-sale estimate of £600-800. My favourites were the pair of “Copper Bed Pans with a collection of Six Stoneware Hot Water Bottles”, above, which fetched £255, a plaster 19th-century Phrenology bust, which raised £382.50, and two pairs of fallow buck antlers and bellows, which went for £510.

No10 washed its hands of the sale, saying: “The management of the Chequers estate is a matter for the Chequers Trust which is independent of Government.” But couldn’t Sunak – who is spending this weekend at the house – have dug deep to stop the sale?

Batting for Middlesex

Russell Grant, the TV astrologer and campaigner for greater recognition of historic counties, is looking forward to Middlesex Day on May 16. He complained at a meeting of the Historic Counties

All Party Parliamentary Group that 11 historic metal “Middlesex” signs in Hillingdon had been stolen and not replaced. But he reserved his ire for the erroneous identification of Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat.

“Boris Johnson’s constituency is Uxbridge, Middlesex and not west London”, adding: “All of these constituencies have historic homes.”

Quite right!

The Doctor will sign you now

Former Doctor Who star Colin Baker, now 79, has been recalling the perils of playing the Time Lord from 1974 to 1981 in the latest Best Of British magazine. “I have had a few rather bizarre experiences along the way. I once had an item offered to me for signature while standing at a urinal,” he says.

“And a woman once asked me (rather cautiously) whether I would sign her breast implant. I matched her cautiousness ... It transpired that the item was no longer ‘in situ’, and had been replaced. I assented and this hemisphere of some gelatinous material was presented to me and now bears my signature. Does that make her my bosom buddy?”

‘Force of nature’ Mrs Mercer

Veterans minister Johnny Mercer has supported his wife Felicity, below, with Mercer, for using social media to take on his political rivals, notably calling Liz Truss an “imbecile” and likening her to a Muppet when Truss sacked Mercer from her government last year. Mercer tells me on Chopper’s Politics podcast: “She’s a force of nature. She is very independent. She does her own thing. I’m incredibly proud of her.

“You can’t go around saying you want women to be independent, have their own minds and censor their outbursts like a North Korean dictator... So she can say whatever she wants. She seems to be right 99 per cent of the time.”

Mel’s important meeting

Griff Rhys-jones and the late Mel Smith were famously given the task, dressed as two policemen, of introducing Queen for their iconic Live Aid performance to over 100,000 music fans in 1985.

Afterwards the pair (below, at Live Aid, with Pamela Stephenson and Billy Connolly) headed off to the VIP enclosure, where they were watching the show with Prince Charles, Princess Diana and The Who’s Roger Daltrey.

Rhys-jones told BBC Radio Solent: “Elton comes on and Mel goes: ‘Ah! Yeah well, I am off ’. I said to Mel: ‘We are at the biggest rock and roll show in the history of the world.’

“He replied: ‘Yeah, I have got a horse running at Doncaster. It was great mate,’ and off he went. I stayed.”

Frank’s MBE

Comedian Frank Skinner will be expected at Buckingham Palace soon to pick up his MBE, which he was awarded in the King’s New Year Honours.

He says on his latest podcast: “I’m hoping, when I get the MBE, I’ll be able to just swipe it in supermarkets and never have to pay for anything again. It better have a barcode on the back.”