For years, Tory grandee Lord Chadlington has been campaigning for safer gambling.

Chadlington, a Tory donor and close friend of David Cameron, who is a neighbour in Oxfordshire, even set up his own pressure group, Action Against Gambling Harms. 

He is also a life president of Action On Addiction.

Now I hear that Chadlington, who made his fortune after setting up two international lobbying and PR groups, Shandwick and Huntsworth, will next month be named chairman of the Gambling Commission, responsible for regulating the National Lottery and gambling operators. 

Chadlington, 79, believes gambling companies should plough more of their vast profits into helping with addiction. 

Quite right, too.

The appointment, in the gift of the Culture department, will be a welcome distraction from his failed attempts to launch a £750 million UK-China investment fund with David Cameron, which might have made both of them incredibly rich.

Despite Cameron's kowtowing to the Chinese when he was PM, the thaw in relations between the terrifying superpower and the West has shunted the fund into the sidelines for now.

Barnier?

Oh la la!

Loved the reaction of Arlene Foster, former DUP head of the Northern Ireland Assembly, on hearing that pompous Michel Barnier, who led the EU Brexit negotiations, https://accommodation-wanaka.com/ plans to run for French President. 

'Poor France,' she tweeted.

Why Bojo was called Boris...

His name is now recognised immediately around the world — but it seems the PM was called Boris only by chance.

Shortly before his birth in New York in 1964, a man called Boris did a favour for 23-year-old Stanley Johnson and his then wife Charlotte, 22, by helping them get a much-needed seat on a Greyhound bus. 

Stanley told the man that as a thank-you, their baby would be named in his honour when it arrived.

This was recounted to former Tory MP Gyles Brandreth, who told The Oldie: 'Stanley is a man of his word.

He also told me that if the baby had been a girl, she'd have been called Doris.'

After the Government's gimmicky appointment of cricketing legend Lord Botham as trade envoy to Australia, will his new chums Down Under overlook his memorable remark that 'Aussies are big and empty — just like their country'?

Without a hint of irony, Alastair Campbell, who was Tony Blair's communications chief when Britain went to war, tweeted: 'A for Afghanistan. B for Brexit.

C for Covid. 

'The three big challenges facing government — Johnson and the most useless Cabinet in history have failed on all three. And plenty more. D for disaster.' 

What about D for dodgy dossier, Alastair, the one you sexed up to persuade MPs to vote for war in the Middle East?

Take with a pinch of salt the self-righteous howls of indignation from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over the shocking delays in airlifting Afghan interpreters from Kabul airport. 

How many times has he raised the Afghan situation at Prime Minister's Questions this year? 

Not once.

How many times did the Labour Party call an Opposition Day debate on the issue? Never.

Not one to let an opportunity to criticise the Government pass, Nicola Sturgeon complains that the number of Afghans to be resettled here should be substantially higher than the planned 20,000.

Scotland's First Minister made national headlines six years ago when she announced that she would be 'absolutely happy' to open her home to someone fleeing the war in Syria.

None crossed the welcome mat on her doorstep — but at least that leaves room for some Afghan refugees.

Veteran Tory MP Sir David Amess brought a surprise guest to his daughter Alexandra's wedding last week: a life-size cutout of his hero, Margaret Thatcher.

The bride must have been thrilled.