Former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, 68, misses the boat when the MP’s luxury Baltic cruise ship left without him in Sweden
Ex-Home Secretary Alan Johnson, 68, has missed an even bigger boat, Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth
He missed the boat when he failed to put himself forward for the Labour leadership.
Now former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, 68, has missed an even bigger boat, Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth cruise ship.
The ex Labour MP was holidaying on board the luxury ocean liner on a 14-day Baltic Cruise and was booked as the celebrity speaker to entertain his 2,092 fellow travellers.
En route back to Britain, the ship docked for a few hours on Wednesday in Gothenberg, where the Labour grandee alighted for some sightseeing with his wife, Carolyn Burgess.
Unfortunately when he returned to the Swedish port he was aghast to see the ship sailing into the distance — without him.
He had to fly back to the UK in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts at his own expense.
‘Watching that boat sail away from Gothenberg was the most depressing moment in my life,’ he told me from his home after arriving back in Britain yesterday.
‘Usually the ship sails at about 5:30pm but this time it was 4 o’clock. We should have known. It was our fault and then we got lost in Gothenberg — the shuttle bus had gone. We were both distraught.
The famous Queen Elizabeth cruise ship of Cunard Line on July 30, 2014 in Dubrovnik, Croatia
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When he returned to the Swedish port at Gotherberg he was aghast to see the ship sailing into the distance
‘My wife is entitled to not be speaking to me for quite a fair amount of time, particularly because her make-up was on board, our money, all our clothes. We just had what we stood in. All I had was a debit card.
‘But Cunard were nice enough to leave our passports with the Port Authority after fetching them from the cabin.’
His absence meant his fellow travellers missed out on the second of his speaking engagements on Thursday. On Monday 800 people heard him talk about his memoirs.
So has the ship sailed for Johnson’s lucrative cruise-liner gigs? ‘I think they’ll know we were punished for it,’ says Johnson.
‘I can assure you it wasn’t an attempt to claim asylum in the European Union before Brexit.’
His predicament caused much amusement on board. ‘Clearly, like so many Labour MPs, he thought he could walk on water,’ joked a fellow traveller.
‘On this occasion he couldn’t.’ Every cloud, as they say . . .
Stage and screen star Juliet Stevenson criticised social media last year, lamenting: ‘The selfie world means endlessly participating in narcissism and materialism. They don’t look out but in.’ How odd then that the 61-year-old actress has now joined Instagram.
Financial sleuths probe bankrupt property tycoon
It might seem that things couldn’t get any worse for Birmingham-born property tycoon Kevin Cash, who, as I disclosed, was declared bankrupt last month, after which he placed North Aston Hall, his magnificent Oxfordshire mansion, on the market for £28 million.
This week saw the Official Receivers replaced by FRP Advisory, the firm which investigated Sir Philip Green’s old company BHS after it went into liquidation.
‘We have nominated Paul Atkinson and Paul Allen of FRP to be formally appointed as Joint Trustees in place of the Official Receivers,’ explains Ian Baker, of City litigation specialists PGB Gitlin Baker. ‘Their job is to investigate and root out any hiding of assets or what are known as avoidance dispositions.’
Trustees in bankruptcy have their fees agreed by the creditors, though those fees typically depend on how much they recover. ‘They only eat when they kill,’ says an observer. Time will tell if Cash — previously worth an estimated £500 million — proves to be easy meat.
Actress Hayley Atwell is half-American, but what will Tinseltown make of her accusation that U.S. stars are bigger divas than Brits?
The Avengers star says: ‘There’s no excuse for bad behaviour and I’ve seen glimpses of it and, I hate to say it, more with Americans than English. The English have a bit of a reverence for the work and less for ourselves. The drama school training is about the discipline of the craft rather than the need for one’s own status or celebrity.’ Ouch!
Boris Johnson is a former winner of the sought-after Politician Of The Year gong at the glitzy GQ Men Of The Year awards. But could the accolade be axed? A Conde Nast insider says: ‘GQ editor Dylan Jones seriously looked at dropping the category at next month’s event. Very few politicians have exactly covered themselves in glory this past year.’ What a Remoaner!
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