John Gibson: Malky, me and a Tory nightmare

Today the column is awash with tears for Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Crocodile tears for Malky who is just as reluctant to answer to “Riffers”.

Reportedly he has lost one of his non-executive directorships worth £55,000.

And a similar post with Unilever has slumped from £7999 a month to a miserable £7166. So not quite so many shekels jingling in his Savile Row pockets.

At this distressing time I’m reminded of the day we met at length in his then delightful Duddingston Village home, gabbing in his garden, soon after Labour swept him from power in the Pentlands. He’d lost his seat there, as well as his crown as Foreign Secretary.

Tories both, we should have been weeping into gins and tonic. But no. The Gibpress File tells me that Riffers had roughed it, just like you and me, peeling spuds in Astley Ainslie Hospital kitchens, unloaded mailbags on nightshift at Edinburgh GPO over Christmas.

He’d been a Cabinet minister at John Major’s elbow, remember.

Yes, it was all wrong on the night for Malcolm Leslie Rifkind. Nothing if not resilient, he is now Kensington’s MP and, despite the aforementioned savage cuts in this cruel economic climate, still one of the Commons’ top earners. Missing Duddingston Village something terrible, he’ll tell you.

Afterwords . . .

. . . Lost in the mists of time, Michael Palin’s exploits with the Python set. He was funny then, like the rest of them. His literary tales for telly have been as gripping as a wet rag. Mike is not to be written off yet, though. Last heard of he was in Ethiopia’s interior and was due back this week. More gripping yarns? Don’t hold your breath.