Angela Rayner was quick to grab some Lioness limelight at Downing Street in the absence of the PM, who now faces the dilemma: How to reward the football heroines? Tony Blair loved celebrity gongings, honouring the entire England World Cup rugby-winning team in 2003 and the 2005 Ashes winners. When yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur broke the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe Blair rushed through a damehood within 24 hours. Will Starmer follow suit? At least the women footballers should do better than their cricketing counterparts. Former left-arm spinner Alex Hartley has a floodlight pylon named in her honour. England bowler Kate Cross has had temporary loos at Old Trafford named after her.

Following the Euro 2025 triumph, proud Scot Andrew Neil clarifies: ‘I was cheering on the England team... I have nothing but scorn for the schoolboy nationalist view in Scotland that they’ll support any team against England, even if the team’s North Korea, Afghanistan or Iran. I think that’s a pathetic attitude.’ Paisley-born Andrew adds: ‘I’m proud as a Scot of my country’s heritage, I’m proud of my British national heritage too.’ No news of the bunting out in Glasgow, alas...

With England’s men not having picked up a major trophy since 1966 is it time for the Football Association to have a rebrand? The three lions badge, worn by men and women, features three maned male big cats. Time for the mane-less females to get a look-in perhaps. Like their footballing counterparts, feline lionesses are stealthier, faster and better at teamwork and tactics than the males. Who knows, even the famously maneless Prince William, president of the FA, might back a change.

Keeley Hawes, pictured, didn’t waste any time getting into nasty mode playing a killer in Prime’s The Assassin. ‘The series opens with a dog yapping at me on a beach and my first line is: “What the f*** are you looking at, you little c***?” We used a version without the C-word in the end but you know from the off that this isn’t a family show. It’s my most sweary role yet.’

Subversive musical satirist Tom Lehrer, who has died aged 97, was a favourite of Princess Margaret – ‘She thought I was Danny Kaye, whom she fancied,’ Lehrer recalled. He notoriously wrote a romantic song about a lover who murdered his girlfriend and kept her hand. ‘The night you died I cut it off/ I really don’t know why/ For now each time I kiss it/ I get bloodstains on my tie.’

Forty-five years after Peter Sellers suffered a fatal heart attack in the Dorchester, his friend director Joe McGrath remembers summoning a doctor to his Shelbourne Hotel suite in Dublin after an earlier minor cardiac arrest. As Sellers lay gasping on a sofa, McGrath opened the door to admit the medic. ‘The doctor took one look at me and said Mr Sellers you don’t look at all well,’ chuckles McGrath.