Pandora: 'Blue Peter' Konnie's sister takes red corner
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Your support makes all the difference.Among the election candidates dodging the flying eggs and inopportune heckles is one familiar face: Rupa Huq, Kingston University lecturer, bona fide hip-hop DJ and sister of Konnie Blue Peter Huq.
Rupa is one of three Labour candidates campaigning for a council seat in Walpole, in the swinging constituency of Ealing.
It's not her first time on the campaign trail. Back in 2004, she stood in the European elections, and a year later managed to scrabble together 6,500 votes in the safe-as-houses Tory seat of Chesham and Amersham. She was even touted as a possible successor to Oona King as the party's candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow.
"Yes, I'm standing again!" Huq chuckles. "I'm downsizing: first the European Parliament, then the Commons and now the council."
Naturally, the prospect raises the rather thrilling question of whether her famous sister, who has recently returned from filming abroad, will be pounding the pavements, red leaflets in hand. Alas, autograph hunters shouldn't get too excited.
"She supports me as a sister but seeing as she's a television personality it's best for her not to get too political. She thinks I'd be good, though!"
Heather puts the knife in... again
Heather Mills lent her support to Cold Kiss, a film raising awareness of youth knife crime. But don't expect to see her air-kissing the film's star, Ray Winstone, any time soon. The, ahem, activist claims to hold little truck with the "celebrity-bullshit world". Her words, not ours. "Sadly, it takes celebrities going on about something for people to ask what it was about. Eventually, though, people will surpass that."
In the meantime, there's always Dancing on Ice to cheer us up.
Sir Cliff serenades a great Dane
News to warm even the coldest of hearts. Sir Cliff Richard, last seen entertaining punters at Morrisons Wimbledon, will appear next week before the royal family of Denmark at the invitation of Queen Margrethe. The monarch has requested the leathery balladeer to perform his hit "Congratulations" at her 70th birthday party. Naturally, Sir Cliff agreed. Since having his prime gig curtailed by a 3,000-tonne retractable roof at the tennis finals, his summer schedule has become rather more... flexible.
Meals on wheels
When William Hague was unveiled as the latest celebrity adopter of the micro-blogging website Twitter, he was rather grandly pronounced in some circles as the Tories' "new secret weapon". But, we're concerned about his diet.
The former 14-pints-a-day man has been keeping his 3,000-plus followers entertained with the minutiae of life on the road (or campaign trail), and we are not sure Jamie Oliver would approve.
"Tory morale in west Yorkshire is high," the shadow Foreign Secretary observed in the small hours of Wednesday night. "After a good day's campaigning, I am enjoying a good Burger King at Wetherby services!"
Fries with that?
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