But this week David Yelland inadvertently secured an infinitely wider audience when he derided Tory MP James Cleverly for his decision to run for London mayor, confusing him with Kwasi Kwarteng by describing him as Liz Truss’s Chancellor – prompting Cleverly to reply on social media: ‘David, I’m the other black one.’

Yelland, 63, said that ‘making an admittedly idiotic error then saying sorry does not make you a buffoon’. But perhaps there’s no need for him to establish his credentials in that regard.

Dominic Mohan, Yelland’s showbiz correspondent at The Sun in the 1990s, recalls a party at a club in London’s West End, spent in the company of Noel Gallagher and models Kate Moss and Helena Christensen. Yelland was not invited, but ‘stumbled in’.

‘He hadn’t really done his homework,’ Mohan tells me, remembering events which he describes compellingly in his new book, 1996: My BackStage Pass To The Wildest Year Of Britain’s Wildest Decade.

Begging to be introduced to Gallagher, Yelland insisted he was a fan. ‘I had no choice,’ recalls Mohan, who pleaded with Noel to ‘treat him gently’.

Gallagher felt unable to oblige. ‘What? You’re the actual editor of The Sun? You bald ***t.’ Yelland replied that he’d seen Oasis ‘perform live at Madison Square Garden’.

‘Oh, really?’ Noel retorted. ‘What did we open our set with that night?’ ‘Oh, I can’t, er, remember,’ stammered Yelland, adding: ‘I’m also a massive Manchester City fan, like you, Noel...’

‘In that case,’ Gallagher replied, ‘who scored the winning goal when we were last promoted to the top division?’

The clueless Yelland was then, Mohan says, slapped about the head by Gallagher.

Cleverly’s let him off lightly.

On the day Andy Burnham was blaming our economic woes on the Thatcher boom, one of Mrs T’s original Cabinet ministers was taking his leave of parliament. Michael Jopling, government chief whip in 1979, has retired from the House of Lords aged 95. It was Jopling who said of his colleague Michael Heseltine: ‘The trouble with Michael is that he has had to buy all his own furniture.’ Given that Jopling’s father was an auctioneer, you might have thought he would have approved of that. The old boy will now observe politics from the fastness of his mini stately home, Ainderby Old Hall near Thirsk, North Yorkshire. 

Imagine… Beatle legend Lennon’s first grandchild 

John Lennon has a grandchild, 46 years after he was shot dead in New York at the age of 40.

The Beatles star’s younger son, Sean Ono Lennon, 50, is celebrating the birth of his first child with fellow musician Charlotte Kemp Muhl, 39.

They have named the boy Aurelius.

Lennon’s elder son, Julian, 63, whose hits include Too Late For Goodbyes, once blamed his father’s poor parenting skills for his lack of children. ‘He was young and didn’t know what the hell he was doing,’ Julian said. ‘That’s the reason I haven’t had children yet.’

Lennon was 22 when his first wife, Cynthia, gave birth to Julian.

Sir Paul McCartney wrote Hey Jude, originally Hey Jules, to console Julian after his father left Cynthia.

Sean’s mother is Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, 93.

Why Strictly will be a holiday for Josh

Strictly Come Dancing has not yet returned, but Josh Widdicombe is already exhausted.

He joins Emma Willis and Johannes Radebe to host the new series when it airs in a couple of weeks, but the comedian, 43, says spending the summer looking after his two children has left him at breaking point.

‘The amount of people that have said to me, “It’s good to have a rest before your busy autumn,” ’ he says. ‘Yeah, I’m really going to be knackered with my busy autumn of working two days a week compared to having holidays where you’re parenting seven days a week.

‘You just get no time to yourself.’ He adds: ‘I’m knackered.’

Lord Roberts’ son Henry, 29, has got engaged to Annabel Grant, also 29, whom he met at Bristol University.

He clearly impressed her with his stamina. ‘I ran 1,000km [621 miles] in 22 days on Australia’s longest straight road, which stretches from Balladonia to Caiguna in the Outback for 149km,’ says Henry, who works for Boris Johnson’s former right-hand woman Munira Mirza at Civic Future. ‘I just felt like doing it.

‘I hope to run across America with Annie after we’re married.’

Was Holly ‘tipsy’ on One Show?

Amol Rajan, who presented Radio 4’s Today programme for the last time yesterday, has rushed to the defence of Holly Willoughby after critics mocked her attempt at making jerk chicken on her new YouTube show.

‘Holly is not a mate, and I don’t know her well,’ asserts Rajan, who plans to launch his own online channel. ‘I met her only once, when I was hosting The One Show and she was [a] guest, a bit tipsy if I recall.’ Whether that was before, during or after the broadcast, Rajan does not clarify.

But of her cookery skills, or lack of, he says: ‘Can we please move to a position in our country and in our culture where the default is to applaud those who give it a go; who pick themselves up and dust themselves off and try and try again, by failing better.’ Not exactly ringing praise...