Matthew Steeples invites you to an evening with redoubtable author and broadcaster Geoffrey Wansell on 22nd April 2026
Matthew Steeples of The Steeple Times
invites you to
an evening with redoubtable author and broadcaster Geoffrey Wansell
Biographer of Cary Grant, Sir Terence Rattigan, Sir James Goldsmith and Fred West
The Steeple Times – Interview and Dinner
at PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie, 52 Fulham Road, London, SW3 6HH
on Wednesday 22nd April 2026
THE EVENING
Arrivals for Prosecco in a private setting on the first floor of PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie from 6.30pm.
Matthew Steeples in conversation with Geoffrey Wansell at 7pm prompt with audience questions to follow for 30 minutes. The format will be similar to our previous discussions with amongst others Britain’s best known crime correspondent Martin Brunt of Sky News, actor, writer and producer Steven Berkoff, filmmaker Amanda Eliasch, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York author Andrew Lownie and Manhunt and Crime Suspect host Peter Bleksley.
3-course dinner with wine, with options for those with particular dietary requirements, to follow. Guests will have the opportunity to chat with Geoffrey Wansell and Matthew Steeples during the dinner.
After dinner, guests will be welcome to continue discussions downstairs at the legendary PJ’s bar for further cocktails and conversation.
GEOFFREY WANSELL
Geoffrey Wansell is an award winning journalist, author, podcaster and television documentary maker who has also done a bit of film and theatre here and there along the way. He started his career in Fleet Street in 1967 as a trainee and became a reporter and feature writer on The Times in 1970. He moved briefly to help start Britain’s first commercial radio station, LBC and then went to the Observer, The Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail, where he wrote long features for many years and still works as their Crime and Thriller reviewer.
His first major book was a biography of the movie star Cary Grant in 1983, then he went on to do the tycoon Sir James Goldsmith and the playwright Sir Terence Rattigan before getting tempted into true crime with the offer of becoming the authorised biographer of Frederick West, the Gloucester serial killer. Geoffrey went on to write the biography of another multiple killer, Levi Bellfield, who killed schoolgirl Milly Dowler, and then a book about the 60 or so people sentenced to whole life terms of imprisonment, called Pure Evil.
Those books led him into TV documentaries, and he has made more than 300 hours for a variety of broadcasters, including 200 episodes of Britain’s Most Evil Killer and the World’s Most Evil Killers for Sky, as well as 28 episodes of Murder by the Sea for CBS and now Amazon Prime, not to mention a series on Britain’s prisons for C5 and a standalone documentary on Denis Nilsen for Netflix.
Geoffrey also managed to produce a feature film for 20th Century Fox from Michael Morpurgo’s When the Whales Came, back in 1988, and then do two theatre tours and four weeks in the West End between 2021 and 2024 with his old friend David Suchet in a show called Poirot and More.
BOOKING
Tickets are priced at £85 per person and include a glass of Prosecco on arrival and half a bottle of either red or white wine per person with dinner.
To pay by bank transfer, please click the following link or make a transfer of £85 per ticket to the account listed below:
Tickets can only be purchased in advance and guest names must be supplied for allocated place settings. The deadline for booking is 4pm on Tuesday 21st April 2026. Tickets are issued on a non-refundable basis.
MENU
The ticket price includes a glass of Prosecco on arrival, ½ a bottle of either red or white wine per person and a three course meal.
Matthew Steeples salutes those suggesting thrice tried Omar Benguit was framed for murder by Dorset Police and calls for an investigation into whether the sordid serial slaughterer Danilo Restivo could be the true killer of Jong-Ok Shin
On Monday night, BBC One Panorama reporter Bronagh Munro revisited the story of the fatal stabbing of a 26-year-old South Korean named Jong-Ok Shin in Bournemouth in 2002. Munro has been on the story of the 2005 conviction of Omar Benguit for this senseless killing for over eight years yet has never faltered in her quest to expose the flaws of what seems likely the unsafe conviction of a man who was admittedly a very messed-up drug addict on the fateful night in question.
On learning of Benguit’s story some years ago, I immediately became shocked at the way in which Dorset Police mismanaged their definitely questionable investigation in response to “extreme pressure to solve the case from the government of South Korea.” It led to now 53-year-old Benguit being found guilty of murder and imprisoned for life on a minimum term of 20 years after not one but an astonishing three trials with the help of only known liars and deceivers. There truly, genuinely was no other evidence.
Now, with Panorama’s latest discoveries this week, I again find myself returning to the alternative theory that a now also 53-year-old “deeply unattractive oddity” named Danilo Restivo is the monster who actually ought to have stood trial for massacring this poor, innocent young lady. Shin – known to her friends as ‘Oki’ – was attacked from behind in a “surprise attack” with a never recovered single-edged knife at around 2:50am as she walked home from a night out on the tiles with friends. As medics tried to save her, in her final moments, her final words were to describe her attacker as “a man wearing a mask who ran away.”
Whilst no forensic or CCTV evidence has ever been produced that could affirmatively link Benguit to the shocking slaughter of 26-year-old student Shin on 12th July 2002, often balaclava-clad Restivo lived just streets away from the murder scene.
Subsequently in June 2011, this Italian born brute was found guilty of killing a neighbour of his, Heather Barnett, on 12th November 2002 in a similarly shocking fashion in a crime that occurred just four months after the slaughter of Shin in the very same neighbourhood. Restivo was thereafter in absentia convicted of killing another lady, Elisa Claps, on 12th September 1993 in Potenza, Italy. He has been linked to the deaths and disappearances of six other females shockingly also.
Curiously uniting all three specific murders aforementioned – aside from each occurring on the 12th day of their respective months and his tellingly being under police surveillance on 12th May 2004 for stalking other women (who were lucky not to become additional victims) – is the fact that Restivo had a fetish for cutting the hair of those he encountered as well as the women he killed.
Omar Benguit has maintained his innocence since his arrest. He has not faltered and in December 2024, his lawyer Des Jenson told the ‘Daily Mail’: “When I first picked up this case, my initial impression was that this is a miscarriage of justice and everything I’ve read since then, everyone I’ve spoken to, everything I’ve seen has only further convinced me that my initial impression was the right one.” In the same interview, BBC reporter Bronagh Munro added: “There’s a victim whose dying words were ignored, a double murderer who wasn’t investigated properly, five prosecution witnesses who admit lying in court and CCTV footage that could give Omar Benguit an alibi, but he’s now spent almost 20 years in prison for murder.”Jong-Ok Shin was just 26 years old when her life was so gruesomely cut short. Born in South Korea in 1976, she was living on Lansdowne Road in the Charminster area of Bournemouth and studying English at the Anglo European School of English. ‘Oki’ (as she was nicknamed) worked part-time in a bank and at a local hotel and had celebrated her birthday with friends and host family just a week before she was attacked in such a horrific fashion at about 2:50am on 12th July 2002 (pictured above the crime scene and a Dorset Police poster appealing for information about the crime). She shortly thereafter at 3:40am at Poole Hospital.Could Danilo Restivo be the real killer of Jong-Ok Shin? Clearly this creepy character, already convicted of two other murders, should have been subjected to a more thorough investigation by the bungling officers of Dorset Police.A knife that was found in Danilo Restivo’s bag when he was arrested in a park whilst spying on women matched the type that pathologists believed killed Jong-Ok Shin. The actual knife used in her murder has not to date been found.
The Wikipedia page dedicated to this devotee of hair “feeling” – a misfit nicknamed ‘The Hairdresser of Potenza’ by the press – mentions the word “hair” an astonishing 137 times and references 15 specific incidents in the UK and 9 specific incidents in the Italy of him tampering with the hair of ladies in public places including on buses in Bournemouth. In the case of Shin’s murder, a “small quantity of animal hair combined with uncut human hair” was found near the crime scene; you could not ‘cut’ evidence clearer about this creepy cretin, to put it curtly.
Speaking to The Steeple Times in January 2023, Amie Benguit, the sister of Omar Benguit, summed up other details of what doesn’t fit with the case against her brother perfectly. At the time, she told me in an email:
“I have been fighting all these years on this grave miscarriage of justice. I was running successful businesses, had just got married and was living near Sandbanks with a one-year-old baby. It was a hot summer’s day. I was down on the beach with my gorgeous baby and I received a call from the police that my brother with two others had been arrested for murder.”
“My beautiful world as I knew it crumbled on me. I didn’t go to the first or second trial as I thought surely this is not going to go anywhere. A bunch of drag addicts on hearsay, no DNA and no forensics. A third trial was ordered, the three men became one; my brother only. One was deported back to Jamaica and never stood trial, the other was caught speeding on a camera going home. At the third trial, my brother was convicted and given twenty years in prison.”
“He has finished his sentence, but still rots away for something that he did not do and refuses to say he did do; he would rather be ‘carried out in a box’ (his words). All this time, lurking a few streets away was a serial killer Danilo Restivo, an Italian national, who the jury did not get to hear about because he had public immunity. The victim’s last dying words were: ‘A man wearing a mask stabbed me from behind and ran off.’ Dorset Police knew about him as soon as ‘Oki’ was murdered as they received a telegram from the Italian police.”
As the new evidence revealed by Panorma on Monday further highlighted, Amie Benguit’s suggestions three years ago remain bang-on-the-nail today. Dorset Police have many questions to answer and just as the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) continue far too slowly reviewing what I believe to be the wrongful conviction of Omar Benguit, I now ask them:
Why did this police force proceed with a case against Omar Benguit when there was no CCTV or forensic evidence linking him to the murder of Jong-Ok Shin?
What happened to the 135 CCTV tapes that the CCRC have discovered to have gone missing from the original trial?
Why did they pressure 13 witnesses, most of whom were known drug addicts, into embellishing their statements and why did they encourage several of them to lie to the court and give false evidence?
Why did they build their case on the word of a proven liar, a drug addict known as ‘BB’ when they knew CCTV evidence contradicted her story and when they were aware that she had a history of making false allegations?
Given ‘BB’ alleged that Benguit leapt out of her car along with two other men, Delroy Woolry and Nicholas Gbadamosi, to accost Shin, why did the police not question how this account differed from the victim only referencing one man having attacked her in her final words to medics before she died?
Why did they believe ‘BB’ when she changed her version of which of the three men fatally stabbed Shin from one to another in two statements and then to finally just Benguit in her third?
Why did they bury the very phone records that gave Benguit an alibi, specifically one concerning a call made from a BT phone phone box just 25 minutes after the murder when ‘BB’ clearly falsely alleged Benguit was some considerable distance away in a crack house and covered in ‘claret-like’ blood?
Why was there no forensic evidence of Benguit or the other two men found in the crack house that ‘BB’ alleged she drove them to in order to get cleaned up – especially if they were covered in blood?
Why did they fail to heed warnings from Italian police who had alerted them about the “cold, depraved, calculated killer… of inhuman depravity” Danilo Restivo – at the time already a suspect for the murder of a 16-year-old in Italy – given he lived just a few streets from where Shin was killed?
Why did they trust the word of Restivo’s clearly biased girlfriend and later wife Fiamma Marsango – a warped woman who had met him in an Internet chatroom and who gave him decidedly suspect alibis in the killings of both Barnett and Shin?
Why did they not look further into Restivo following his conviction for sadistically slaughtering and brutalising the body of his neighbour Heather Barnett just four months after the murder of Shin?
Given there was a clump of hair found near Shin’s body, why did they not examine the clearly likely link between the known “hair fetishist” Restivo – proven to be associated with at least 15 cases of hair cutting in Bournemouth and at least 9 in Italy – and that clearly important piece of evidence more thoroughly?
What are Dorset Police doing in relation to fresh evidence discovered by BBC Panorama of a grainy CCTV image that potentially shows Restivo on a bike around the corner from the murder scene that was recorded just 10 minutes before Shin was killed?
Finally, as Bronagh Munro suggests in a BBC News article to accompany the premiere of the programme, could the force’s motive for framing Omar Benguit be because of they wanted to coverup their failure to stop at-the-time suspected murderer Danilo Restivo from killing again?
Watch Panorama: Framed for Murder? on BBC iPlayer by clicking here.
Follow the campaign to support Omar Benguit on X at @FreeOmarBenguit. Find more information about the case by clicking here and follow reporter Bronagh Munro at @munro_bronagh.
If you haven’t done so already, please support keeping The Steeple Times in the business of telling the stories that the mainstream media don’t dare touch by helping fund our work via Patreon. Even a small donation will help keep us going and will be hugely appreciated.
As with Jong-Ok Shin, who was murdered on 12th July 2002, the two victims Danilo Restivo has thus far been convicted of murdering were killed on 12th day of the month. Charminster, Bournemouth neighbour Heather Barnett was mercilessly slaughtered on 12th November 2002 whilst Restivo previously took the life of Elisa Claps in Potenza, Italy on 12th September 1993.Amie Benguit has campaigned tirelessly for her brother in the years since his conviction; BBC reporter Bronagh Munro has made a number of programmes about the murder of Jong-Ok Shin since 2018. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is currently considering Omar Benguit’s case and in particular is referencing CCTV evidence discovered during Munro’s 2021 investigations.On the date of the premiere of the latest BBC programme about Omar Benguit’s case, Monday 16th February, Mountford Chambers shared news on their website about the instruction of Edward Henry KC. The announcement read: “Edward Henry KC is instructed in the case of Omar Benguit, which concerns the murder of student Jong-Ok Shin. A major investigation by ‘Panorama’ has uncovered compelling new evidence suggesting that Omar may have spent more than two decades in prison for a crime he did not commit. The findings raise serious questions about the conduct of the original police investigation and the fairness of Omar’s three trials.” His CV is impressive and states: “Edward has appeared in many leading cases, including the successful overturning of a rape conviction at the Court of Appeal in the case of Andrew Malkinson. He also represented former sub postmasters and sub mistresses in the Post Office Horizon Inquiry and defended in the largest money laundering allegation in British criminal history.”
Matthew Steeples reacts to finding himself mentioned in the latest #EpsteinFiles release; he isn’t complaining, but now understands why Ghislaine Maxwell’s family and associates so objected to his making “mucky madam” references of the deviant daughter of the pension pot plunderer prior to her 2021 trial and conviction
I first wrote of grubby groper Ghislaine Maxwell after encountering her at a ritzy rendezvous to launch a female-only car rally at the sadly since shuttered Bibendum restaurant in London in June 2019.
The evening had been setup by a social climber and self-declared ‘entrepreneur’ named Julie Brangstrup purportedly to raise funds for victims of sex trafficking. With hindsight – given its now most infamous attendee is rotting in a Tallahassee clink for the most sordid of sex crimes – the money-minded Cash & Rocket fundraiser most definitely can now be considered beyond crass.
That summer night, as I dined on sumptuous seafood and Paris Hilton rambled round the room, little did I realise that the ocean obsessed lover of Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would be the weird woman present whose story would hurl me down a rotten rabbit hole that would give even the cast of characters of Alice in Wonderland nightmares. I unexpectedly started to delve into a dark, dark world that very moment and most definitely remain in that dark, dark world still six years on.
Many years prior, over a beverage or five at Tosca Café in San Francisco at the start of the ‘War on Iraq’ in the early 2000s and during one of many visits for the city’s annual International Film Festival, I found myself discussing not only art and architecture, but also arms and anger with a fascinating gent named Dale Djerassi. This trustafarian filmmaker son of the ‘father of the pill’ Dr Carl Djerassi had been married to a woman he named only as ‘Isabel’ and occasionally recounted information about her when not telling me of his ‘art colonies’ and other projects. They had divorced a few years earlier.
The former Mrs Djerassi progressed to establish the Internet search engine Magellan, but it was not until later that I realised that she was originally Isabel Maxwell and her son, Alexander, was thus a grandson of the pension pot plunderer Robert Maxwell. Alexander Djerassi went on to work for Hillary Clinton and now terms himself, like many in the web of which I now recount, a “diplomat, policy expert, and entrepreneur.”
In early 2004, the “MySpace for Millionaires” that was ASmallWorld came into being. I cannot recall how I came to be included, but I was amongst the earliest of members. An uber connected online club that sadly was subsequently destroyed when Harvey Weinstein heaved his almighty girth upon it, this was a place that features in the latest Epstein files release an astonishing 147 times. Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were both active ASmallWorlders and their missives there with amongst others the property tycoon and now treasurer for Nigel Farage’s Reform party Nick Candy have begun to emerge in the latest US Department of Justice dump.
Particularly prevalent on the site in its early years also were Epstein and Maxwell’s mates Flavio Briatore and Naomi Campbell; they are, of course, infamous for a St Tropez birthday bash to which the late sex trafficking victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre was taken to shimmy on a gin palace alongside amongst others the coffin dodging convicted criminal and poisonous dwarf Bernie Ecclestone. Back then, it transpires, birds of a rotten feather used ASmallWorld for all sorts of curious conversations; today, it’s just a tacky travellers’ talk room.
Now, after chapters in which I have come into contact with everyone from pontificating PR peddlers for Ghislaine Maxwell including the anything but bashful Brian Basham – a man best known for his association with Robert Mawell and the infamous ‘Dirty Tricks’ campaign run by British Airways against, ironically, Jeffrey Epstein’s pal Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin back in the 1990s – to the poor, unfortunate victims abused by both her and her late lover, this week I was informed that I had been mentioned in the most recent release of what is known as the ‘Epstein Library’ in ‘Tactical Intelligence Report’ documents prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Little to my prior knowledge – thanks to information given to me by a crusading columnist and Daily Mail journalist known for finding the needle in even the highest of haystacks – my writings about Ghislaine Maxwell’s former home at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia had been considered relevant for inclusion at her 2021 trial by the FBI. More importantly, this since shamed ‘socialite’s’ involvement with a “person of interest” in that trial, a “disgraced solicitor” named Malcolm Grumbridge, was the focus of attention in a four-page document also presented in a series of files listed in what the Twitterati hashtag the #EpsteinFiles.
Struck-off, rule breaching Grumbridge, like many associated with the sidelines of this saga, is someone you’ve likely and have no rational reason to have heard of either. I believe that he has connections to the funnel of the missing £500 million plundered by Robert Maxwell and he piqued my interest after James Hurley for The Times, in August 2021, observed:
“[Grumbridge] has been a mysterious figure during his more than four-decade legal and business career… [who has been] at the heart of the Maxwells’ opaque finances, setting up and owning companies on behalf of the brothers Kevin and Ian Maxwell.”
The Steeple Times follow-up to this feature, delved deeper and generated a series of curious emails from individuals associated with Grumbridge and the Maxwells; I had clearly touched a nerve, but little did I know it would be the “mucky madam” reference that would so grate the ire of the decidedly deranged offspring of the ‘Bouncing Czech’ Robert Maxwell.
Most I have spoken with featured in the latest and prior ‘Epstein Library’ releases have unsurprisingly been horrified to find themselves there. Innocent and not-so-innocent exchanges, what were considered to be private pictures (and ones of Peter Mandelson in his undercrackers) have horrified; German venture capitalist and Matt Hancock and Ehud Barak associate Nicole Junkermann bantering: “Will you have a baby with me?” to the croaked paedophile Epstein and simpering and stupid Sarah Ferguson wanting to marry him have shocked and sickened.
For me, this appearance has not done me an iota of harm. Off-record, a television personality and author who was amongst the few to encourage me to go after the Maxwells and their missing money since 2019 when many slammed me with “there’s no story here, find something else” enthused: “You didn’t give up, you haven’t given up and now you must continue. You’re not even 45% out of this rotten rabbit hole yet.” As Lewis Carroll’s character herself concluded: “[It’s all going to get] curiouser and curiouser!”
If you haven’t done so already, please support keeping The Steeple Times in the business of telling the stories that the mainstream media don’t dare touch by helping fund our work via Patreon. Even a small donation will help keep us going and will be hugely appreciated.
Malcolm Grumbridge’s passport photo – shown in the FBI’s 1st October 2021 ‘Tactical Intelligence Report’ presents the image of a proper wrong ‘un’s mugshot. Various information about Grumbridge, a solicitor since 1978 but now removed from the roll, travelling in the USA between 24th and 27th October 2019 are included as are links to articles from ‘The Steeple Times’ amongst other publications, but quite a few details remain redacted even in the recent #EpsteinFiles dump.The listing for ‘The Steeple Times’ in the four page FBI ‘Tactical Intelligence Report’ states: “As of December 2021, according to the Steeple Times, an online magazine based in the UK, Malcolm Grumbridge was found guilty in 2020 ‘of a string of rule breaches’ after more than four decades of having a legal and business career. The article states Grumbridge has been at the heart of the Maxwell’s finances to include acted as the custodian of 44 Kinnerton St in Belgravia, London.” The article also states Grumbridge established over 150 companies in total.” Other details from the ‘DailyMail.com’ and ‘This is Money’ describe him as a “Maxwell family associate” and “Maxwell family friend and lawyer”; he is also referenced in “being removed as a Solicitor from the Solicitors Regulation Authority due to several rule breaches.” Website Chiswick Calendar is referenced as follows: “Malcolm Grumbridge was removed from the Roll of Solicitors after an investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) because they identified several ears of concern such as: Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, The SRA Accounts Rules 2011, the Solicitors’ Accounts Rules 1998 and the SRA Code of Conduct. Grumbridge was accused of failing to check the source of where money was coming from and failing to verify the identity of clients. The SRA stated Grumbridge ‘failed to behave in a way that maintain the trust the public places in him.’”‘The Steeple Times’ 5th August 2021 article about Malcolm Grumbridge was titled: “MUCKY MAXWELL & GRUBBY GRUMBRIDGE”. It is now clear why Ghislaine Maxwell’s associates have repeatedly objected to this publication’s references to her as the “mucky madam” and the “mendacious mucky madam”; these references were there for all to see at her trial and rightly set in stone the image of this wicked wastrel woman for what she truly is; a reprehensible and rotten-to-her-core sex offender and convicted criminal who cared more about money than she did about her fellow (wo)man.“Mysterious figure” and tubby twerp Malcolm Grumbridge’s entry in the Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein ‘little black book’ includes an astonishing seven telephone numbers, a postal address in London, W4 and an email also. In our 5th August 2021 report about his fall from grace, we stated: “Former sole practitioner Grumbridge – whom established around 150 companies in total – transferred a cash gift from a client to his personal account, ‘without the client being advised to take any independent legal advice.’ He also was slammed for not accurately maintaining books, making inter-client loans without proper written authority and took cash withdrawals from client bank accounts in favour of himself. Though the Solicitors Regulation Authority deemed Grumbridge’s conduct ‘serious enough to merit a fine of between £25,000 and £50,000’, this was ‘reduced to £2,000 [plus £1,350 in costs) on the basis of the admissions made at an early stage, Grumbridge’s ill health and his co-operation with the investigation.’” One is left asking: “Would anyone with half a brain have trusted Malcolm Grumbridge to be left in control of even a used bus ticket let alone over 150 companies including The Hogarth Group?”When not busy advocating for Ghislaine Maxwell, “disgraced solicitor” and fan of the “truly excellent wines” at the Villa di Geggiano restaurant in Chiswick Malcolm Grumbridge – using the handle @rotewond – has found time to write on the social website formerly known as Twitter. Variously, to his 23 followers, Grumbridge demanded Boris Johnson help asylum seekers and sought to get Dominic Cummings sacked, but contradicted his campaigns in retweeting former CEO of Business in the Community CEO Mary Macleod’s call to #VoteConservative in Brentford in May 2015. A bit of a bombastic busybody, in October 2014, Grumbridge tweeted: “Re-phased lights at junc Chiswick High Road/Goldhawk Road causing long E/B tailbacks – any news on yesterday’s investigation?” In January that year, tickled his followers with announcement that “Mr and Mrs Malcolm Grumbridge of Chiswick, London” were delighted to announce the engagement of their daughter, Zoë, to one Jonathan Rippon. The now Mrs Rippon, on her X handle @zoegrum, currently lists herself as head of fundraising for the non-profit AfriKids. Malcolm Grumbridge himself does not appear to have used X since July 2022.The Maxwell family’s curious ‘network’ of associates and supporters has also included the pontificating pillock and PR peddler Brian Basham, his sordid sidekick Jay Beecher and the “memory lapsed” moron once accused of shoplifting, Richard Madeley.
Matthew Steeples invites you to join him as he celebrates his 45th birthday with a discussion-dinner with Sky News crime legend Martin Brunt on the 27th January 2026 in London
“High praise for the Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt. When a hack from (another) newspaper phoned Suffolk Police press office with a query on the serial killer case, he was told: ‘Call Martin Brunt. He knows everything before we do.’ A little concerning.”
Hugo Rifkind, The Times, 22nd December 2006
Matthew Steeples invites you to PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie in London on his own 45th birthday for an evening where he will chat to the author, commentator and renowned Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt about his 36 years delving into stories of deaths, deviancy and drama in Britain and beyond.
Educated in Soham – best known as the place where Ian Huntley brutally slayed 10-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in August 2002 – Brunt began his career as a reporter on local newspapers before moving to the Sunday Mirror as chief reporter and then joined Sky News for its launch in February 1989. For 36 years hence, Brunt became a staple in households throughout the land as he covered stories ranging from the ‘House of Horrors’ murders committed by Fred and Rosemary West in Gloucester to the still ongoing case of the disappearance of the toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal in 2007.
Aside from meeting murderers and maniacs, Brunt’s career in crime reporting is highlighted as one where he became acknowledged for his ability to gain access to sources others could not dream of and one where he has been able to observe the character traits of such criminals as “Britain’s most violent prisoner” Charles Bronson from an alternative angle. He recounts what he describes in his 2023 memoir No One Got Cracked Over The Head For No Reason as the “odd moments of humour or humanity” he has found in “even the darkest cases” with an example where Hatton Gang vault robber described his gang as being “Dad’s Army rather than criminal masterminds,” for example.
On 27th January at PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie – following on from rip-roaring evenings with amongst others actor, writer and producer Steven Berkoff, filmmaker Amanda Eliasch, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York author Andrew Lownie and Manhunt and Crime Suspect host Peter Bleksley – you will get to enjoy a delicious 3-course dinner after 45-minutes of conversation and questions with this tenacious reporter and commentator and to learn of some of the true stories behind the headlines of cases ranging from the 2015 murder conviction of South African blade runner Oscar Pistorious to the 1987 Knightsbridge Safe Deposit robbery.
Tickets are priced at £85 per person and include a glass of Prosecco on arrival and half a bottle of either red or white wine per person also with dinner. Full details of how to book follow below.
We do hope you can join us for what will be an evening of convivial conversation and classic crime capers.
If you haven’t done so already, please consider supporting keeping The Steeple Times in the business of telling the stories that the mainstream media don’t dare touch by helping fund our work via Patreon.
Martin Brunt spent 36 years at Sky News. Of his time there, he recently remarked: “It all began at a time when there was no 24-hour TV news channel in Europe, Margaret Thatcher was PM, Germany was two countries divided by the Berlin wall, Kylie was still just a soap actress and beer was a penny a pint. I made up that last bit. Prince Harry was a toddler and many of my current colleagues weren’t even born… We were hip young gunslingers who shot up the TV news establishment and eventually built a global audience who loved us for being bold, brash and innovative. It was fun to be part of the revolution. Early on, I tried wars, earthquakes and famines, but very quickly decided a life of crime was better for my health, though there have been dodgy times… Being Sky News crime correspondent has been the best job in the world. But it’s changed. The phone hacking scandal, the Leveson Report – which frowned on old police-press relationships – new privacy laws, and growing risk aversion have scuppered the sort of crime reporting I once did. Happily, things are improving slowly… Over the years, I did think about opportunities elsewhere but for me, obviously, Sky was the limit… Sky News has become my Hotel California…I can check out anytime I like, but I can never leave. Here’s to the next 36 years.”The case that Brunt has become most famously linked to is the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3rd May 2007. He has delved into this story again and again over the years and most recently spent much time covering the thus far unsuccessful investigation into the German criminal Christian Brueckner.Other notable cases have included that involving the Knightsbridge Safe Deposit robber Valerio Viccei, the murder of the BBC television presenter Jill Dando and the notoriously violent prisoner Charles Bronson
Booking Details
TIMINGS
The event is to be held on Tuesday 27th January 2026.
Arrivals for Prosecco in a private setting on the first floor of PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie from 6.30pm.
Matthew Steeples in conversation with Martin Brunt at 7pm prompt with audience questions to follow for 45 minutes.
3-course dinner with wine, with options for those with particular dietary requirements, to follow. Guests will have the opportunity to chat with Martin Brunt and Matthew Steeples during the dinner.
After dinner, guests will be welcome to continue discussions downstairs at the legendary PJ’s bar for further cocktails and conversation.
ADDRESS
The event is to be held at PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie, 52 Fulham Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 6HH.
The nearest London Underground station is South Kensington (District, Circle and Piccadilly lines); it is located just 5 minutes away on foot.
The event is to be held on the first floor of the building; access is by staircase only.
PAYMENT FOR TICKETS AND BOOKING QUERIES
Deadline for booking – Tuesday 27th January 2026 at 11:30am; tickets can only be purchased in advance and guest names must be supplied for allocated place settings.
Tickets can be purchased at a rate of £85 per person. Please make payment by bank transfer to:
Bank: Barclays Bank
Account Name: Longreach Publishing Limited
Sort Code: 20-90-74
Account Number: 63608697
IBAN: GB13BUKB20907463608697
SWIFTBIC: BUKB
Please reference payments “BRUNT” and include your surname and the surnames of any guests also to aid our record keeper.
Should you have any queries or questions, please contact Jane Monckton at [email protected]
SET MENU – 3 course dinner, Tuesday 27th January 2026
The ticket price includes a glass of Prosecco on arrival, ½ a bottle of either red or white wine per person and a choice of one of each of the following:
All at ‘The Steeple Times’ wish readers and supporters a very merry Christmas; Matthew Steeples delves into stories of rotten royals and pugnacious politicians with former MP turned broadcaster Simon Danczuk
Flora Watkins wrote of what she observed to be “the sorry demise of the round robin” in The Spectator’s Christmas special bumper edition. Whilst, in jovial fashion, she enthused about these seasonal “destined to stoke the fire” missives, yesterday, on the afternoon before Christmas Eve, The Steeple Times’ Matthew Steeples did its equivalent of such by spending just over an hour chatting with the ex-Labour MP turned broadcaster and author Simon Danczuk about the news stories of 2025.
Amongst the topics touched upon over a few Moretti beers by the duo in a live YouTube discussion was another article from The Spectator – an until now considered venerable magazine founded in 1828 currently edited by the ex-cabinet minister Michael Gove – about the controversial OnlyFans self-declared “don’t be a slut like me” that is Bonnie Blue. Whilst Danczuk expressed understandable surprise at the choice of such a deservedly reviled and ridiculed young women for a ‘Christmas Notebook’, Steeples suggested it “bizarre” to bring onboard a most generally naked trollop who lauds “Andrew [Mountbatten-Windsor] as a bit of lad” and suggests “I’m a sex worker, but I am also sophisticated and quite elegant.”
A very open critic of ‘Farmer Harmer’ Sir Keir Starmer both on Twitter and TalkTV, Danczuk slammed “the mess” his former party have made of Britain in both economic and social terms and called out his failure as a “disaster’ even. “Starmer is the most unpopular prime minister we’ve ever had in this country,” he added.
Turning to the rottenest of royals, the former prince now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Danczuk and Steeples conversed about the revelation of an email allegedly sent by the late Queen Elizabeth II’s second son to the mendacious mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
Condemning the demand for “inappropriate friends” to be “stupid” and exploring the revelation of the removal of “exceptionally grumpy and angry” Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s shotgun licence, the pair touched on mental health and whether a doctor may or may not have intervened. “No pass for Andrew from me… My sympathies are with the survivors,” Danczuk concluded.
All at The Steeple Times very much hope you enjoy this ‘round robin of an interview’ and though Matthew Steeples has been largely quiet in 2025 after a series of personal matters rather overtook him, we do hope you will support us as we return with aplomb to weeding out woke wazzockery, banishing banal bores and lauding living legends as we move into 2026.
Happy Christmas. May the beverages flow and may the times be merry wherever you may be.
We very much hope you enjoy watching the ‘round robin’ discussion we filmed at The Cleveland Arms in Paddington, London, W2 yesterday. Further conversations with Simon Danczuk and others will be filmed in due course along with outings for our very popular quiz feature.
In a recent interview during one of our popular PJ’s dinners, Matthew Steeples interviewed ‘Bond Baddie’ actor, writer and producer Steven Berkoff. We do hope to welcome many more readers and supporters to our events in 2026.
In the autumn, on two occasions, we interviewed film producer Amanda Eliasch about the question of who really wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare. This is a topic we will definitely return to in the New Year given the amount of interest that our audience has expressed.
In a revision to our Christmas discussion dinner event on Sunday 8th December, Matthew Steeples will now delve into developments in the Menendez brothers, Madeleine McCann and Ghislaine Maxwell cases with freelance writer and former BBC publicist Claire Rubinstein
Hosted in a similar fashion to the Peter Bleksley ‘Lawmakers & Lawbreakers’ discussion dinner we held back in November, the evening’s focus will be on the three true crime stories that Steeples has spent years investigating – that of the conviction of the mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell, ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann and the wrongly maligned for many years Menendez brothers.
Rubinstein – who is renowned for her attention to detail and tenacity – will quiz Steeples and the complexities of each case, why each has captivated the minds of the public and what is expected to come next in each story in 2025. Guests will have the opportunity to ask questions both during the dedicated discussion segment and dinner itself.
Tickets to the evening are priced at £99 and include a delicious 3 course Christmas dinner and a glass of Prosecco on arrival and half a bottle of red or white wine per person with the meal. To book, at this late stage, please contact [email protected] to receive the relevant sort code and account number to pay via bank transfer.
The event starts at 6.30pm prompt and we look forward to welcoming friends and readers old and new to what will be yet another riveting evening where curious questions about three of true crime’s biggest stories – Menendez, McCann and Maxwell – will be examined in detail.
Following on from our ‘Lawbreakers & Lawmakers’ discussion dinner on 6th November at PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie where renowned policing and crime expert and Talk TV Crime Suspect and Channel 4 Manhunt ‘Chief’ Peter Bleksley spoke of the toxicity that has enveloped policing and explored the public’s enthusiasm for the true crime genre, our second event turns the tables on three very well-known cases. On 8th December, freelance writer and former BBC publicist Claire Rubinstein will quiz Matthew Steeples about his knowledge and connections with the story of the conviction of the mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell, ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann and the wrongly maligned for many years Menendez brothers.In 2024, two series – Peacock’s ‘Myenendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed’ and Netflix’s ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ – have reinvigorated interest in the story of two brothers who Matthew Steeples has long argued should have been convicted of manslaughter and not murder. Erik and Lyle Menendez were victims of the sickest forms of parental abuse and as we move in 2025, it looks like that they could finally be resentenced. Steeples remarks: “These brothers have more than served their time and the legal system, after significant pressure from the TikTok generation who seized upon this case during the coronavirus lockdowns amongst other factors, has finally acknowledged that in recent weeks.”In November, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was told that yet another of her attempts at an appeal had failed. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has continued to demand the naming of the names of the associates of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and with Donald Trump again returning to the presidency in January 2025, the story of the mucky madam is unlikely to fade into obscurity.In the orbit of the story of Madeleine McCann, outrage at the continuing funding of Operation Grange – on which some £13.5 million of public funds have since 2007 been wasted already – has continued to bubble, whilst no credible evidence against ‘suspect’ Christian Brueckner has still surfaced. Shouldn’t the investigation into the ‘disappearance’ of a child who’ll likely never be found not cease as we move into the New Year?The other key ‘players’ in the sordid stories of Maxwell, Menendez and McCann (left to right) – the late Jeffrey Epstein, the late Robert Maxwell and Donald Trump; the late Jose and Kitty Menendez and Gerry and Kate McCann. What will become of those living and the ‘legacies’ of those deceased in 2025? Steeples argues: “It is now time for the truth about of all of these individuals and their roles in these stories to be finally shared.”
A YouTube video of Matthew Steeples chatting with Peter Bleksley and guests at the first ‘The Steeples’ ‘Discussion Dinner’ on 6th November 2024 at PJ’s Chelsea Brasserie in Fulham Road, London, SW3 was a huge success. We look forward to welcoming those who attended and those that didn’t on the 8th December to witness Matthew Steeples being interviewed about the latest developments in the cases of the Menendez brothers, Madeleine McCann and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Matthew Steeples suggests that with new ownership looming, it is time for ‘The Telegraph’ to put Ghislaine Maxwell apologists agony aunt Rachel Johnson and agony uncle Richard Madeley out to pasture
Boris Johnson’s birdbrained sister Rachel Johnson couldn’t help herself finding it “hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell” back in November 2021 in an article for The Spectator. Prior, in July 2020, Supermarket Sweep style, champagne loving sort Richard Madeley went further of the since convicted “socialite” turned “sex offender” and bizarrely raged in the Daily Express:
“The sharks are circling; they smell blood in the water… Innocent until proven guilty? That honourable credo is in shreds… It would take a heart of stone not to feel empathy for another human being suffering what amounts to mental torture. To coin a phrase: you wouldn’t treat a dog like that… There’s calculated purpose behind this pitiless regime… They’re trying to break her.”
United back then in both being apologists for a wayward, wastrel woman whose pompous, petulant papa plundered over £500 million from Mirror Group pensioners, Johnson and Madeley not only backed the wrong horse, but also showed their truly repugnant colours. Aside from joining the team of victim shamers, these two boring braggarts nailed themselves to #TeamMaxwell and one of the clearly most cretinous creatures to have existed in modern times. Further, they lauded her audacity and ignored the barbaric treatment of the very victims Ghislaine Maxwell effectively considered to be pathetic, pointless playthings.
Countering the warped warblings of Johnson and Madeley, of mucky madam Maxwell, one victim, later commented: “Maxwell ruined the lives of countless women and children.” Another added: “You opened the door to hell” whilst another remarked: “As a woman, I think you understood the damage you were causing – you could have put an end to the rapes, the molestation, the sickening manipulation that you witnessed and even took part in.”
Now, several years on, both Johnson and Madeley find themselves on the payroll of The Telegraph, ironically as agony aunt and agony uncle. Tasked with advising readers in each Saturday’s papers, this weekend Madeley – who once asked a bisexual: “Would you prefer to have sex with me or Judy?” – responded to an unnamed man who’d emailed to state: “Years ago, I met a girl in a bar in Thailand. I knew she was a sex worker, but I was captivated… We started a ‘normal relationship’… but we did tend to fudge the question of how we met.” Judy Finnigan’s husband enthused: “I loved your fascinating answer… Be proud of it!”
Elsewhere in the paper, in “Ask Rachel,” equally sex obsessed Johnson dealt with the dilemmas of a man whose question was summed up as: “My wife is unhappy we’re not having sex. After 27 years of not wanting me, isn’t it a bit late now?” Her analysis: “Quite a lot going on her, or should I say not going on… This sounds less like a scene from a modern marriage than something out of a David Attenborough documentary… In fact, I was listening to Farming Today recently and they had an item on llamas and how you know when a female llama is pregnant or not. If she is, and therefore in no need of any more physical attentions, then she’ll spit viciously at any male who tries to approach. It was so interesting I almost sent it to Pick of the Week… but I forgot.”
In April 2021, we revealed that the one-time classmate of ‘Spreadsheet Phil,’ the former Tory chancellor Philip Hammond, Richard Madeley was being followed by Ghislaine Maxwell’s PR team on Twitter and that he’d written two columns in the ‘Daily Express’ in which he expressed “empathy” for the since convicted mucky madam sex offending abuser. The presenter subsequently did not make his views known on what he felt about what happened to Maxwell’s multiple victims or her much deserved 20-year jail sentence.Mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell and meddling Richard Madeley – Amongst the few papers who disgracefully gave Ghislaine Maxwell favourable coverage were the ‘Daily Express’ and ‘Daily Telegraph.’ Plainly these are amongst the only titles where Jeffrey Epstein’s head honcho of recruiting underage girls’ PR peddler Brian Basham (pictured left) had any substantive influence.Put them out to pasture – Richard Madeley deservedly trends on Twitter / X almost daily give the buffoonery he spouts; whilst his booze loving wife Judy Finnigan has thankfully virtually disappeared from the public eye, he sadly has not (yet).Put them out to pasture – Whilst her brother Boris Johnson has yet to make a political comeback, isn’t it time that his irrelevant sister Rachel was taken off the air?Elsewhere yesterday ‘The Guardian’ reviewed a new exhibition that has debuted at the Spike Island gallery in Bristol. Amongst the items shown in ‘Grey Unpleasant Land’ are a set of sun-bleached red velvet curtains. Of them, the paper’s Evan Moffitt observes: “Described as having been acquired from the 2020 clearance of 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia. A Google search will tell you that the house belonged to Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted associate of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It’s understandable why the artists chose not to name her, though without the extra effort, the drapes are a mysterious stage prop. Throughout, the show poses questions about how objects accrue value and meaning, which often comes down to how much or how little they’re framed. Maxwell is very much the elephant in the room alongside items from the same class as the person she set up with underage girls.” I’d instead argue that it is curtains for sanity in Britain when Ghislaine Maxwell’s stained curtains are considered worthy as “art exhibits.”
Quoted in Full – Rachel Johnson and Richard Madeley on Ghislaine Maxwell…
Sister of Boris Johnson and journalist Rachel Johnson (‘The Spectator,’ November 2021)
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell – 500 days and counting in solitary confinement.”
“I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.”
“She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall – even though I wasn’t in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home.”
“I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.”
‘Dorian Gray of Daytime Telly’ Richard Madeley (‘Daily Express,’ July 2020)
“The sharks are circling; they smell blood in the water… Cynics would say the [FBI] agency is playing a long game, seeking to sway the minds of jurors in advance of Maxwell’s trial next year… Innocent until proven guilty? That honourable credo is in shreds.”
“Firstly, consider the conditions under which Ms Maxwell is being held. They are truly grim… It would take a heart of stone not to feel empathy for another human being suffering what amounts to mental torture. To coin a phrase: you wouldn’t treat a dog like that.”
“But it’s not sadism, or premature punishment ahead of a verdict. No; there’s calculated purpose behind this pitiless regime. But, here’s another prediction… it will. They’re trying to break her.”
‘King of Cringe’ Richard Madeley’s ‘Finest’ Moments…
On his son’s wedding
“There’s been so much angst about it… It’s been so choppy, but, yes, he got married and now we’ve got a daughter-in-law.”
Of his daughter
“Sorry Chloe, but you were an accident and you know it!”
To a member of the victorious England 2022 ‘Lioness’ team named Chloe Kelly
“Chloe or Coco, as I call my daughter, Coco, thank you very much. Thanks for coming in. Right, er, now it’s competition time. We’ve got another one.”
To a male weatherman of his daughter
“My daughter fancies you by the way.”
In conversation with President Clinton
“I know what it’s like to be wronged by the press. I was once accused of shoplifting. Unlike you though, I knew I was innocent.”
Of daubing himself in fake tan and turning a “shade of mahogany”
“What happened was at three in the morning I put my daughter’s fake tan on, I was doing a Donald Trump.”
On going commando
“I don’t wear underwear… 30 per cent of blokes don’t wear underwear, it’s not mad.”
Whilst on the lavatory squatting
“You are not filming me urinating. You can listen.”
To an actor who was playing a bisexual
“Would you prefer to have sex with me or Judy?”
Of his and Judy Finnigan’s sexual activities
“When we were trying to conceive, I would douse my balls in icy water before intercourse.”
“Remember when you had thrush, Judy? You had a terrible time of it.”
On Viagra
“It makes everything much longer and return, you know, swiftly.”
Of sex on television
“I don’t think what we see on television is erotic enough.”
Of women
“I’ve never met a single woman who’s happy with the way she looks, except Jordan, although I’ve never met her.”
“Women lie about sex. It doesn’t matter how many partners she says she’s had before you… She’s lying.”
On elephants
“So, are you telling me elephants are not born evil?”
After a woman remortgaged her house to fund treatment for her dog
“Is there a point where you just say: ‘Too expensive, the dog has to die?’”
To a man crying after paramedics saved his life
“Stop crying! This is supposed to make you happy! Anyway, after the break, the biggest dog in the UK. And he really is big. Don’t miss it!”
Showing ‘sympathy’ for people who died in quicksand in Morecambe Bay
“Yes, what an awful way to die.”
On assisted suicide
“At that point where you just need a little push to go over the edge, I wouldn’t give a two-penny f**k if there was a risk of being prosecuted.”
In Nostradamus-like fashion on coronavirus and lockdowns
“We are being duped… [They are trying to] put the fear of God into the public. A great reckoning is coming.”
“There’s no point in running away and hiding from the virus.”
“We must learn to live with coronavirus.”
“If I had a bell, I would ring it… Only 59 people who have been double vaccinated and without any other serious underlying health problems, died from COVID, out of 50,000 deaths in England, this year.”
“I have to say that the majority of people are surprisingly forgiving [to government representative Steve Barclay], and are actually saying that they understand that the reason for some of the mistakes wasn’t malpractice but scientific ignorance – we didn’t know enough… But on the whole, you seem to be getting away with it – as far as our viewers are concerned.”
Of catarrh
“With men when we get all the catarrh we have it up, like Leo on Titanic… Judy swallows her phlegm.”
Of old women skipping
“There’s not many better things than seeing an older woman skipping.”
Of wanting to be black
“I hope when I’m reincarnated I come back black because you age better.”
To actress Keira Knightley
“Can we get some make up please, get Keira looking like a crack whore, she’d make a good crack whore.”
To singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor
“Where did you get your face?”
To mindreader Derren Brown
“Can we have petroleum and a rope? We are burning you at the end of the show.”
To Sex Pistols singer-songwriter John Lydon
“If we could throw a fishing rod into the corridors of time and reel you in, you’d throttle you wouldn’t you?”
To gay Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant
“How’s your wife?”
To a novelist
“If you were going to write an autobiography, who would it be about?”
Of troubled footballer Paul Gascoigne
“He suffers for us. He bears our pain in the most public way possible… Perhaps this has always been Paul Gasgoine’s destiny.”
To a psychiatric patient
“So, Jane, when did you first realise you were quite clearly mad?”
To a group of dwarves
“Do you find that people patronise you? That means that they talk down to you?”
Of an autistic teenager
“The thing with Daniel [Wakeford, a ‘star’ on Channel 4’s Undateables] is, he has autism but is very intelligent and as we can see extremely talented. Has Daniel always been autistic?”
To an anorexic teenager
“Five stone? Wow, that’s concentration camp thin, that is.”
To a caller
“I understand you have a little lad of 12. Is it a boy or a girl?”
And finally and most insensitively, to a young child with leukemia
“Hello baldy.”
“Very Unkind” Rachel Johnson’s Most Ridiculous Remarks…
On boozy lockdown breaking parties in Downing Street
“I didn’t see much of the Prime Minister and his family during lockdown, but the times I did see him, he was completely compliant: he dotted every ‘I,’ he crossed every ‘T.’”
“If it was rule of six, there were six. And what I didn’t see were all the things you’ve been reading about.”
“To my mind, if he did go out into the Downing Street garden – and he’s told us he did – for him, that would have been work. He may have had a drink, I don’t know. Is that one of the key questions? But that would have been work.”
“For example, at his birthday, it was me, my three brothers, Carrie and Wilf. That was six people. And I have to tell you something about my brother’s character.”
“You’ve been seeing the front pages which couldn’t have been worse: suitcases of booze going into Downing Street from the Co-op.”
“I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that he has never once turned to me or any member of my family and said: ‘I tell you what, let’s have an office party’ or: ‘I tell you what, let’s have a party.’”
“If anything, he would say: ‘Let’s play reading,’ when we were growing up, or even in our twenties, or: ‘Let’s play, who can memorise the most poems from the Oxford book of verse’’ And, of course, it was always him.”
“Look, I’m just telling you what I saw over lockdown and what I know of my brother’s character.”
On her own character
“Of course, I’m naughty.”
“Without my Johnson trademark mop of yellow hair, I think I would be nothing.”
On politicians
“If you tell the truth you get into trouble and that’s why politicians are extremely dull.”
On the sex trafficker and daughter of a thieving murderer Ghislaine Maxwell
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell.”
On food and coffee
“In Germany, salads are assemblies of ham and mayonnaise.”
“I am a total coffee snob and bore. If anyone makes the mistake of offering me ‘a coffee’ they tend to regret it. I’m worse than Mariah Carey and the hot milk rider is completely non-negotiable.”
On her work
“I used to sit at home in my tracksuit bottoms and the real excitement of my day would be going out to get a copy of Private Eye and a latte.”
“It’s often discouraging sitting working at home, wondering whether to put the heating on, answering the doorbell to the gas board, feeling it’s all utterly pointless.”
“The Lady [which she was the 9th editor of between 2009 and 2013] is a piddling little magazine that no one cares about or buys.”
On what others think of her
“I’m worried about looking like a bad person… I don’t like the public image I’ve been dressed with and it worries me.”
“When I’m called unkind, that really cuts to the quick. You can say anything else that you like about me.”
“I don’t mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.”
Matthew Steeples suggests the late Jeffrey Epstein’s close chum, meddling ‘Prince of Darkness’ Peter Mandelson, to be totally unfit to be British ambassador to the US
The Right Honourable Lord Mandelson PC is undoubtedly a terribly clever chap. He became known as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ with very good reason and it is understable that he is noted as “ruthless” and “media savvy.” Here, indeed, is a 71-year-old former Young Communist League member who has not only “played the game” for his entire career, but here also is someone who has most definitely “manipulated it” throughout his entire lifetime.
A man who has proven that only the most cunning cats can have more than nine lives – this, it must be remembered is someone who has comeback from scandals galore and in spite of being declared as the second most loathed Labour Party member in 2009, has dominated that organisation for decades – the title of Peter Mandelson’s 2010 memoirs sum him up perfectly. The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour detailed this Hendon, Middlesex born grammar school educated politician’s pivotal role in powerbroking during the Blair-Brown years and even now, Lord Mandelson continues to be described as being a “core part” of the policymaking direction of Sir Keir Starmer’s new government.
Prior to July’s General Election and since, it has been predicted that Lord Mandelson is about to find himself appointed to yet another plummy position, that of His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America. With such would not only come a ritzy residence in Washington – formerly redecorated in a most tasteless fashion by the Chanel clad charity tin banging finger pointing prized pillock Baroness Meyer in the late 1990s – that was originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, but also what is considered to be “one of the most important and prestigious positions in His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service.”
If elevated to such a role, Lord Mandelson would not only have to present British policies to the American government and people and report American policies back to the UK, but he’d also have to be diplomatic and dedicated. Given his pugnacious past, would that even be possible? Given also, for example, in 2018, the peer described Donald Trump as a “bully and a mercantilist,” how on earth could he expect to foster good relations with the returning President?
Aside from being especially chummy with the non-sweaty, Pizza Express loving dimwitted dunce Prince ‘Randy’ Andy, ‘Handy Mandy’ has long been linked with the mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell via her pension pot plundering papa Robert Maxwell.
Lord Mandelson and his now husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva also holidayed with the late prolific paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in December 2005 whilst “Epstein was under police investigation for numerous sex offences” and then subsequently celebrated his own birthday in January 2007 with him at the sex trafficker’s Paris apartment. In June 2009, even more shockingly, according to the Financial Times, “when he was the UK business secretary, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s lavish townhouse in Manhattan, while the financier was in prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor.”
One is left asking just one question: Can a meddling man of such poor judgment be considered a suitable person to manage what has long been thought of as the most “special” of relations? The answer can only be “most definitely not.”
Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples and watch his shows on YouTube at @mjs2781/streams.
Pictured top – They partied together, they shopped together – Clearly close chums Peter ‘Petie’ Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein together in 2005 and 2007 (left) and the British ambassador’s residence at 3100 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D. C. (right).
Meddling Mandelson – Further illustrating Lord Mandelson’s poor judgment, in August 2019, Guy Adams and Daniel Bates for the ‘Daily Mail’ reported: “A 2002 report in ‘New York magazine’ stated that the ‘British Cabinet minister’ had attended an intimate dinner party at Epstein’s New York home alongside a motley collection of guests including Donald Trump, magician David Blaine and Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. It added that food had been cooked by celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, at a cost to Epstein of $50,000. Strangely, Mandelson — then a serving MP — did not see fit to declare the expensive hospitality he received in the Commons register of interests — though he did register other events he attended during a 2002 visit to New York. Mandelson did not comment when asked for an explanation about the matter this week. However, speaking more broadly, an acquaintance said that the Labour politician met Epstein on a total of ‘no more than five or six occasions’ in the years they were acquainted, adding that, ‘Peter only knows him because of a friendship with Ghislaine, who he met in the 1980s and has known ever since. ‘It was Ghislaine, not Epstein, who invited him to Little St James, when he stayed on the island with Reinaldo. Epstein wasn’t there during that stay, and neither were any girls or what have you. So however bad it might now look, there was nothing about the visit that could have led him to believe anything untoward went on there.’”Prince Andrew, whose friendship and association with Peter Mandelson has long been known, was hosted at the British Embassy in Washington by the pompous pillock then ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer in 2001. He was pictured guffawing with Sir Christopher’s charity tin banger wife Catherine (now Baroness Meyer) subsequently and would likely love to see his chum ‘Petie’ take over the crib.Lord Mandelson has long been known to have had associations with Jeffrey Epstein’s cronies and most notable amongst them has to be Jes Staley, the now disgraced former JP Morgan and Barclays head honcho. Would these chums thus find themselves invited for Ferrero Roche nights at the British ambassador’s residence in Washington?Lord Mandelson – at the time the European Union Trade Commissioner – holidayed with Epstein just months before the latter’s arrest in the Caribbean. The two “middle-aged holidaymakers” were photographed on 27th December 2005 in a fashion boutique where the former was snapped trying on a white belt whilst wearing a £21,000 ($28,500, €25,200 or درهم104,800) Patek Phillipe watch – which the ‘Daily Mail’ pointedly noted to be worth “almost two months of his post-tax income.” Opposite him, his clear ‘mate’ Epstein is captured giggling.Peter Mandelson was quite happy to hang out with Jeffrey Epstein, a mutual mate of the since disgraced JP Morgan Chase & Co. banker Jes Staley, at his £10 million Paris paedo pad circa 20th January 2007 in spite of the taxi driver turned sex trafficker having been charged with soliciting a woman for prostitution in August 2006. Whilst Lord Mandelson may or may not have seen newspaper reports about the arrest of his ‘chum’ just months earlier in August 2006, one is left questioning the standard of his judgment in hanging around with this subsequently convicted nonce. Pictured in a hoodie in his dining room blowing out candles on a cake presented by a diminutive butler named Valdson Viera Cortin is supposedly tee-total Epstein whilst ‘Mandy’ – whom features in the now infamous ‘black book’ we believe belonged to Ghislaine Maxwell with 10 phone numbers attributed – gawped rather over-enthusiastically, a glass of red wine in front of him. The pair appeared in the image perfectly at ease together, in spite of the fact that various newspapers had already reported on the horrific allegations against the Brooklyn born taxi driver turned teacher turned financier.As many have said of entries in the address book often misattributed to Jeffrey Epstein, which most instead believe is primarily the contacts of mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell, The Right Honourable The Lord Mandelson PC is someone who was closer to the deviant duo than most. With TEN phone numbers for him and his partner since 1998, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, this is someone who the pugnacious pair clearly had regular contact with.Whilst Peter Mandelson has been openly gay for many years and in a known relationship with a Brazilian, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, since 1998, it is lesser known whether Jeffrey Epstein liked ‘underage boys’ as well as ‘underage girls.’ Aside from allegations about an alleged ‘special relationship’ with his alleged benefactor, the aged Victoria’s Secret billionaire tycoon Leslie Wexner, it has been suggested the Ponzi scheming paedophile Epstein liked taking ‘little boys’ to his ‘Paedo Islands’ in the Caribbean as much as he enjoyed taking ‘little girls’ there for his own gruesome gratification. These images by an Instagram ‘artist’ going by the name @AIArtistKing have been proven fake, but rumours about what the former taxi driver turned teacher turned ‘billionaire’ did sexually with males continue to do the rounds.Oxford educated Peter Mandelson (St Catherine’s College, 1973 to 1976, pictured with Matthew Freud) and Oxford educated Ghislaine Maxwell (Balliol College, graduated 1985, pictured with Rupert Murdoch) are connected in multiple ways. Of the pension pot plundering ‘Bouncing Czech’ that was Robert Maxwell, the Labour peer once remarked: “It was very strange because you’d simultaneously want to be at Maxwell’s parties and at the same time shrink away from him. Because he was such a bully and so unpredictable. To be honest, I was frightened of his company. He had that ability to make you feel completely small and inadequate, and that just scrambled my head.” A Trump ‘love-in’ – Bizarrely, endorsement for Lord Mandelson (pictured with his Brazilian translator lover and now husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva) to be the next British ambassador to Washington has come from Nigel Farage (pictured with his French cocktail bartender lover Laure Ferrari). The Reform UK Member of Parliament remarked: Peter Mandelson, in my view, could be a viable candidate for the ambassadorial role. He’s an intelligent figure who knows his brief well, as I saw when he worked with the European Commission. While I’m not certain he’s the ideal fit for dealing with Trump directly, his intellect would at least command respect.”
Matthew Steeples quick-fires his views on 10 trending topics of the moment; from Labour’s attack on farming to J. K. Rowling and gender
Billionairess busybody Taylor Swift…
Prized pillock politicians would do well to distance themselves after their Cruel Summer with this blonde bombshell. Hanging off her coattails didn’t turn into a Love Story for either Kamala Harris or Keir Starmer.
Sir Keir Starmer allowing Lord Alli to pay for his wife’s clothing and his own spectacles…
Send her to Primark; send him to Specsavers.
Labour’s filthy attack on British farmers…
Farmers are the guardians of the countryside the British public supposedly treasure. Rachel ‘Thieves’ Reeves is clearly as thick as pig sh*t if she doesn’t realise that; it’s time someone dumped a load of manure on her doorstep.
Kemi Badenoch seizing leadership of the Conservative Party…
Soppy Sunak was sloppy and second rate, but things are going to get really BAD with BadEnough at the helm. One could ask: “Why would anyone want the poisoned chalice anyway?”
The Lib Dems finally doing well electorally…
It’s time for Sir Ed Davey to now stop acting like Coco the Clown; it’s time for his party to up their game and remember the days when they said: “Bollocks to Brexit.”
J. K. Rowling speaking out on gender…
A man is born a man and a woman is born a woman; if you want to identify as something else, so be it, but please don’t ram whatever you want to be on anyone else. If only Rowling could a Harry Potter style wand and wash away wokeness also.
The likes of the porn pest Huw Edwards not being sent to jail whilst those that say something stupid on Twitter are…
Edwards not being thrown in the clink was a travesty; the rat deserves the birch, but sadly sadly he’d likely love that. As for the mouthy morons who rant and rave on social media, it’d be better just use the off button.
Those still whining about the price of Oasis tickets…
Quit your WonderWailing.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s failed appeal and the possibility of a pardon from Donald Trump…
Given the mucky madam’s stinginess and unpaid debts of circa £3 million to lawyers worldwide, what did this filthy fiend expect to happen in court? As regards what’s next, one can only assume that Donald Trump would rather the Bouncing Czech’s daughter’s silence remains permanent.
Ranting raver Angela Rayner…
Perhaps her advisors should tell her to stop dressing and behaving like everyone’s Aunt Sally.
Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples and watch his show on YouTube by clicking here.
Matthew Steeples suggests the General Election is going “bonkers in Broadstairs” after the Tories replace “bionic man” Craig Mackinlay with the lover of the disgraced sex fiend Tory Peter Bone as their candidate in East Thanet; elsewhere, petulant ‘popstar’ Holly Valance may throw her hat in for Reform in Basildon and Billericay
After “sepsis survivor” ex-UKIPer turned Tory Craig Mackinlay MP announced he would not be standing in the newly created East Thanet constituency, it looked to be a shoe-in for lobbyist and Labour candidate Polly Billington in the forthcoming General Election 2024.
Rumours subsequently circulated that Reform UK’s Nigel Farage might return to the area to run again after he came second for UKIP in South Thanet in 2005; his candidacy in a seat that includes Broadstairs, Margate and Ramsgate would certainly have put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Farage’s decision to instead run in Clacton returned a definite lead to Billington, but now the Tories have thrown North Northamptonshire based Helen Harrison into the ring; she is the lover of the disgraced ex-MP sex pest Peter Bone – a menace who was found to have “indecently exposed himself” to a male aide.
Elsewhere in Basildon and Billericay, Donald Trump loving pop singer and ex-‘Neighbours’ actress Holly Vallance is rumoured to be announcing her run for Reform UK in spite of her billionaire hubby Nick Candy being a one-time Tory donor turned Labour supporter.
The General Election of 2024… The ‘Holly and Polly Show’… You just couldn’t make it up!
Update – 6pm BST, 07/06/24 – There’ll be no ‘Holly and Polly Show’ as Holly Valance Candy has decided not to stand in Basildon and Billericay due to it being “very difficult logistics wise” yet there still could be a ‘Polly and Bone’ show on one of Broadstairs’ beaches yet.
‘Bonny Broadstairs by-the-sea’ isn’t somewhere you’d associate with voters venting, but prior to today’s 4pm deadline for submitting a nomination to be a candidate in the 2024 General Election, here is a place that has already seen a fair few political rumblings during this particular campaign.
First, on the very afternoon ‘Fishy-No-Longer-So-Dishy Rishi’ turned into ‘Soppy Sunak’ as he was drenched in a downpour as he announced that the poll would be held on American Independence Day, 4th July, the Member of Parliament for the area, Craig Mackinlay JP, returned to a “hero’s welcome” in the House of Commons.
Mackinlay, a former deputy leader of UKIP and Conservative MP for South Thanet between 2015 and 2024, was unprecedentedly clapped in to the House of Commons that day after surviving a quadruple amputation of both his legs and arms following an infection of sepsis.
Subsequently, given his ill-health, Mackinlay unsurprisingly decided to announce his decision not to stand and in doing so effectively gave theLabour wannabe for his constituency, a lobbyist and senior advisor at Hanover Communications named Polly Billington, a freer-run than even she was already anticipating.
Now listed as a seat in which Labour are on a 92% chance of winning against the Tory’s 8% chance and where the rest of the parties don’t either register according to the Electoral Calculus website, East Thanet Conservative Association decided to pull a very strange move. They opted to chose a North Northamptonshire councillor, Helen Harrison, as their candidate at a “packed meeting” on 2nd June.
Snapped with Mackinlay in a photo shared on Instagram, Harrison termed the Conservative she wished to replace a “brave man” and told local newspaper The Isle of Thanet News:
“Craig and I share many beliefs. We both campaigned to leave the European Union, in fact I founded Grassroots Out, the second largest Leave campaign. And, like Craig, I was part of Leave Means Leave. I am concerned about the rush to achieve net zero at great cost to ordinary people who cannot afford it. I ran the Back Boris Tour in 2019, which was an integral part of a campaign to get Boris as our Prime Minister to deliver Brexit.”
“I am living in the constituency and will be buying a house locally. As your MP, not only will I hold weekly surgeries and be available to all residents, but you will also likely bump into me in the supermarket or high street.”
“My plan will be to set up a listening campaign. I will listen to the people of East Thanet… I will listen, campaign and deliver… I will always remember that I am East Thanet’s representative in Westminster and not Westminster’s representative in East Thanet.”
Harrison – who recently spectacularly failed to get elected in a by-election in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire where Labour wiped the floor with her – failed to elaborate as to whether she’d be bringing her “longtime partner” of “years” Peter Bone with her. Bone, voters will recall, will go down in history as an ex-Conservative MP who “exposed himself to an aide and physically struck him,” according to The Independent.
Deservedly disgraced Eurosceptic hardliner Bone – a maniacal menace formerly prone to quoting his now ex-wife Jeanette at PMQs – a House of Commons report found, had “committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct” against a male member of his staff. The report detailed that aside from grotesque ‘antics’ on other occasions, the then MP for Wellingborough had “dropped his towel and exposed his genitals close to his employee’s face” and went on to expose himself to the complainant in a bedroom they had shared on a work trip in 2013.
Speaking to The Steeple Times earlier today, one Broadstairs local sensibly surmised: “One can only hope Ms. Harrison leaves ‘The Boner’ at home in Northamptonshire. We most definitely don’t need that frothing at the mouth fruitcake ‘frolicking’ in our local hostelries.”
Elsewhere this morning, the Guido Fawkes political blog shared that the former Neighbours actress and Kiss Kiss and Naughty Boy singer Holly Valance “is eyeing a run as a Reform candidate in Basildon and Billericay… The seat that’s seen Tory chair Richard Holden parachuted into.”
Australian-British citizen and wife of Nick Candy – a ‘billionaire’ property developer considered an “Olympic level name dropper” who has flirted with both Boris Johnson’s Tories and Keir Starmer’s Labour – Valance (born Holly Rachel Vukadinović to a Serbian father and a British mother) is already a busy bee on the politics front this month.
Next Friday, after having confirmed herself as a crackpot in claiming the “climate crisis, or lack of, is not a crisis” in February at a “taking back control… freedom” PopCon event with Liz Truss, 12th June, birdbrained Valance is to co-host a ‘Trump 47’ reception and dinner at a venue as yet unknown in London.
‘Mrs Holly Candy,’ as Valance is trumpeted on the official invite, at a gathering where “attendance and contributions [are] strictly limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents only” are several ambassadors as co-hosts including Duke Buchan III, George Glass and Richard Grenell. Guests of honour will include the endangered species slayer Donald Trump Jr. and his harridan half-wit wife Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ex-wife of Democrat ‘Gavinator’ and 40th governor of California, Gavin Newsom.
The price for a plate to nosh-it-up alongside Mrs Candy? £78,000 per couple. The price for a ‘photo opportunity’? A bargain basement snip for a snap at just £20,000.
Pictured top (left to right) – Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Holly Valance; ‘bionic man’ Craig Mackinlay in Parliament; Mr Mackinlay with ‘replacement’ candidate Helen Harrison; Peter Bone with Harrison, Bone with his now ex-wife “the much quoted” Jeanette and wearing a stupid hat in the House of Commons; Labour candidate for East Thanet, lobbyist Polly Billington.
Labour candidate for East Thanet Polly Billington (pictured with Labour grandee Emily Thornberry – a woman who doesn’t like being addressed as Lady Nugee) worked for the BBC before becoming a SPAD to Ed Milliband in 2010. She has been a Labour councillor in Hackney and has worked as a senior advisor at the PR lobbying firm Hanover Communications. In March 2024, under the banner of “dark money investigations” by ‘Open Democracy’ examined Ms Billington having worn “two hats” as a “lobbyist and parliamentary candidate” in a broader article about “prospective MPs with lobbying day jobs [who] are introducing their clients to senior Labour figures – and boasting about it.”Self-professed “deliverer of Brexit” and all-round bombastic bore Nigel Farage pictured campaigning in Broadstairs on 9th April 2015. Though it was touted he might return to an area of Kent in which he came second in the 2015 General Election earlier this week, he plumped instead to head off to Clacton and thus took away what could have been the one big threat to Labour’s Polly Billington’s chances of success.A haggard looking Helen Harrison (pictured left) leaving a building named Ashley Court in Westminster with her haggard looking lover Peter Bone after their affair was revealed; Peter Bone MP in the House of Commons in 2017 wearing a brightly coloured woolen hat; he was “ticked off,” according to ‘The Sun,’ but “sparked giggles among his fellow MPs.” At the time, they added: “He was criticised in 2006 for boosting his ratings by saying, very little, very often” as part of a quest to be in the “top ten most active MPs in Parliament.” Amongst his ludicrous behaviour was to “mention his [then] wife in at least 60 debates since 2005,” the paper also reported.The new Conservative candidate for East Thanet, Helen Harrison, will no doubt be out and about pounding the pavements of Broadstairs, Margate and Ramsgate in the coming days and weeks. Whether she will be accompanied by her disgraced sex pest lover – whom she dragged out campaigning with her during the Wellingborough by-election back in January much to the disgust of voters – with her remains to be seen given in March the “qualified physiotherapist” told the ‘Northamptonshire Telegraph’ she was “cross and frustrated” by her “depiction in the media as Bone’s girlfriend.” She later claimed in a “self-penned article” for ‘Conservative Home’ that “she believed she had been the subject of a humiliating sexist campaign designed to discredit her candidacy.” In that feature she whined: “Given the high level of interest in my candidacy, it was unsurprising that the press put considerable effort into trying to unearth information to discredit me. They will have trawled through my social media and looked into my past to find dirt on me. They found none because there is none. That didn’t matter. Being ‘Bone’s girlfriend’ was enough, surely? That description, used repeatedly, was deliberately reductive and degrading. The term ‘girlfriend’ was consciously chosen because it would suggest to readers, listeners, and viewers that my candidacy was illegitimate and that I had been selected simply because of my relationship or to stop him running. Worse, it made me sound inexperienced, and under Bone’s control. With no other information about me being shared, how could any other view be formed? It was also designed to cause outrage… I’m a 51-year-old woman in a committed and settled relationship. Bone and I have been living together for over 5 years. We are partners. I am nobody’s bloody girlfriend!” It must be noted that in the 2024 Wellingborough by-election on 15th February, Helen Harrison saw a -37.6% swing against her. She achieved just 24.6% of the vote and aided a Conservative majority of 18,540 in 2019 be turned into a Labour majority of 6,436; what will Helen Harrison achieve in East Thanet? Something equally laughable?Elsewhere, Holly Valance Candy has become increasingly political in 2024 and even attended Nigel Farage’s “surprise announcement” of his Clacton candidacy on Monday. It helps that this bit-part former soap actress has a billionaire husband (pictured here with her left) in the form of the political party flip-flopper Nick Candy (who has supported the Tories and Labour in recent times) and associations with very, very rich people such as the flame-haired Lady McAlpine (centre); in April 2022, Nick and Holly Candy dined with Mar-a-Lago in Florida with Nigel Farage and Donald Trump (pictured right with a photograph of Trump with the North Korean psychopath dictator Kim Jong Un above them). Mrs Candy has praised President Trump as “fabulous” and has also hailed Lee Anderson as “awesome” and supported the blatantly batshit bonkers idea of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg as a future Prime Minister.‘Mrs Holly Candy’ likes to keep an ‘international perspective’ when it comes to politics and is involved in a London dinner to raise funds for the ‘Trump 47’ campaign with Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle. Curiously though the event is limited to “attendance and contributions” that are “strictly limited to U.S. citiznes and permanent residents ONLY,” Australian-English citizen Holly Valance Candy (whose father is Serbian and whose mother is English) has been allowed to be a “host.” One is left asking: How does that work?The husband of Holly Valance and at-that-time a Tory donor Nick Candy pictured with the failed Tory Mayor of London candidate Shaun Bailey (now Baron Bailey of Paddington) and others at a Christmas party during the now infamous ‘Jingle and Mingle’ lockdown party held during the 2020 lockdown at Conservative Central Office at 4 Matthew Parker Street, London, SW1H 9HQ. Amongst others present was the especially unctuous ‘Red Dress Partygate Pisshead’ Malin Baker Bogue – a “pro-Trump lobbyist” employee of a company named Stonehaven whom once declared: “When I dance, they call me Macarena.”
Candidates confirmed as standing in East Thanet (as of 1pm on Friday 7th June 2024):
