London Diary: Cameron's credibility crisis & Boris' exit

Spring is in the air. It’s summertime with clocks going an hour forward. But while the Sun has been shining, the previous fortnight which encompassed Easter has been quite turbulent... raising the eternal “Karna question”: Can anyone ever be 100 per cent sure of a child’s paternity? And when the Archbishop of Canterbury himself is the “child” in question? Archbishop Justin Welby is the son of Gavin and Jane Welby. His mother, Jane Portal was Winston Churchill’s secretary for many years. Anthony Montagu Browne was the last head of Churchill’s private office. A rumour surfaced over Easter that Montagu Browne, (not Gavin Welby) was the Archbishop’s real father. To settle the issue and end rumour, Justin Welby agreed to a DNA test. A DNA examination confirmed the rumour.

His mother Jane, now Lady Williams, was distraught. She had no memory of this episode in her past. Justin Welby was superb. He said he was not alone. Many grown-ups discovered their biological father was not the one who had brought him up. He was lucky his parents brought him up lovingly. He was fulsome in his compliments to his mother. This unusual news would have run and run but thankfully (with divine intervention?) the Panama story broke.

But this story of paternal bonds was quite another “kettle of fish”, as they say... The investment made by Cameron Senior all those years ago in a Panama company he had set up came to haunt the Prime Minister. His father died a few years ago. The family sold the investment and his mother arranged it so no inheritance tax needed to be paid. It was a genuine transaction but in his anger at the media attack on his parents, Mr Cameron fumbled and possibly failed to convince the press that all was above board.

By the time he had finished, he had to publish his tax returns along with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. Demands have been made that all MPs should make their tax returns public.   So it’s a firm goodbye to our mop haired Boris Johnson as the mayoral election looms next month, and we also gear up for the Brexit referendum. The campaign began on Friday and will end on June 22.

We have already had weeks of debate in the media. It’s all in the open and another 10 weeks of this may try our patience. It’s not an easy time for Mr Cameron on this either. He wants the UK to stay. Half of his party wants to leave the EU.   Unbelievably, the very unpopular Mr Corbyn is trusted by more people than Mr Cameron. That spells trouble.

At the Common-wealth, we will miss the erudite Kamalesh Sharma who has retired after two terms as secretary-general. He and his charming wife Babli were most helpful when we were raising money for the Gandhi statue. But he has handed over to the very capable Baroness Patricia Scotland who is also a friend, as well as a patron of the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust. She has the most remarkable string of “firsts”. Born of parents from Dominica, she was the first black woman to become Queen’s Counsel (QC), the first woman attorney-general and now she is the first woman SG of the Commonwealth.

The best boost for Indian tourism came with Prince Williams and Catherine. They should be made brand ambassadors for Incredible India, as they walked the diplomatic line and showed no discomfort in playing either with the rhinos at Kaziranga or with Sachin Tendulkar in Mumbai. They even politely posed at the Taj Mahal. Kate has also done her bit to promote the Indian fashion. Already social media reports are celebrating the crash of Mumbai-based fashion designer Anita Dongre’s website after Kate wore her Mughal print-inspired dress to play cricket and the blue and white outfit she wore at the Taj Mahal was a creation of Naaem Khan, an Indian-American designer. But then she can obviously afford to look cool and chic very easily as she has a team of five helpers.

PS: I was at the Queen’s birthday celebration at the high commisioner’s residence in Delhi last week. And when I admired her dress, she promptly told me she liked mine as well! Close up, we discovered another secret of how she looks so good. She is also very very thin — the perfect body for fashion designers!