How Influencers Ruined London Their Outrageous Behaviour At Claridges Took My Breath Away

Hotels don’t come much classier than Claridge’s in London’s Mayfair.

For nearly 170 years, it has specialised in understated glamour – at a price, of course.

I’m sorry to say, however, that even this bastion of old-fashioned luxury is beset by a very modern menace.

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Last week, I was fortunate to be invited to the unveiling of the Claridge’s Christmas tree, an occasion at which Olivia Colman read an excerpt from from the lesser-known ‘Twas the Night After Christmas’.

There was a suitably starry crowd inside the packed hotel, including Richard E Grant, Joan Collinsmodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Celia Imrie. The atmosphere was wonderfully festive.

Yet something felt amiss, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on – until, suddenly, the penny dropped. The answer was all too obvious: we’d been infiltrated by social media ‘influencers’.

In the room, yet not quite part of the evening, these were the young men and women whose gaze was fixed on not fellow guests or the magnificent Claridge’s decorations, but their smartphones.

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Posing outlandishly, gurning, gesturing, speaking into little furry microphones clutched between their fingers, the look-at-me brigade behaved as though they were the real event.

Quiet was called for as Ms Colman took the microphone, ready for her reading. Influencers pushed their way to the front. Mobile phones shot into the air and remained aloft.

At this, the BAFTA-winning actress took a stand: ‘Could everyone please put their phones down,’ she asked firmly. A woman famous for playing the late Queen (herself no fan of mobile-phone obsessives), Ms Colman was in little mood for joking.

But only half of the young phone offenders did as they were asked.

Ms Colman asked again: ‘I can see you,’ she said. ‘Put the phones down… please.’

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We were lucky to be in that beautiful room at all, let alone to hear a star of stage and screen treat us to a Christmas classic.

Yet, still, a dozen or so phone-wavers persisted, rudely disregarding a simple request.

Ms Colman tried again. She wasn’t going to start until those pesky phones were gone.

‘I can see you, you know, please put the phones down,’ she repeated, this time with a hint of irritation in her voice.

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Yet even now there were phones in the air, the owners determined to face down the star guest while the rest of the room waited nervously.

‘Don’t they speak English?’ I asked the man next to me.

‘Yes, but they are influencers,’ he replied. ‘They’re like an infectious disease. They’ve completely destroyed London.’

The room was silent, aghast, as the battle of wills ground on until it was clear that the refuseniks simply would not budge.

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This moment – the chance to film A-lister reading a classic by the Claridge’s tree – was the reason they were there.

A unique post for Instagram. A clip for TikTok that would win new followers and earn money in a virtual world insatiable for ‘content’. Phones or no phones, the reading went ahead.

It’s not only London that’s suffering. Influencers are a plague on the Cotswolds, where I live, too.

My old house in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, used to be a favourite with coachloads of Japanese tourists. I’d watch them run to our gates, photograph the front of the building – admittedly very pretty – then scuttle back. We could tolerate that.

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Today, however, the house is besieged. Social media ‘professionals’ waving outsized microphones block the pavements with big bags and cumbersome tripods.

Happy to invade private gardens or perch on the steps of family homes as they film, the arrogance is breathtaking.

The phone bandits seem determined to turn streets and houses into their own private film sets – reducing the people who actually live there to no than bit parts, an irritating inconvenience to be shushed away at will.

Just a few days ago, I came across an influencer who thought his posts were important than my lunch. Stationed beneath the Christmas garland at a local hotel, he didn’t seem to care that he was blocking the entrance.

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Far from it. He suggested I wait for him to finish filming.

For a while, I obliged, standing in the freezing cold for five minutes while he gabbled garbage into his camera – until, finally, I’d had enough.

‘I’ve got news for you.’ I said as I pushed past him. ‘You’re not Woody Bloody Allen.’

His irritation at losing the shot was expressed in words which are unprintable.

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Sneaking out from last week’s stand-off at Claridge’s, I’d joined a friend for dinner. We found ourselves sitting near a beautiful young woman in the company of an older, somewhat unattractive man. A large Rolex gleamed ostentatiously from his wrist.

While her companion stuffed his hamster cheeks with grub, the young woman was absorbed in filming – herself. We watched as she held a glass of red wine in her hand, took the wine to the camera, smiled, and then away from the camera, then back.

‘It’s called a boomerang shot,’ said my friend, which seemed to make the point.

These people are everywhere, in your face – and there’s simply no escape.

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Nana is no fan of toilet humour

Looking after my granddaughter last Saturday morning as she played with her kitchen set, I ate something from the fridge which was off.

‘Yeuch, that’s disgusting,’ I squealed.

‘Drink my water, Nanon,’ said my granddaughter as she handed me a toy teacup. Grateful, I downed it in one. And then looked about the kitchen.

‘Thank you, but, where did you get the water from?’ I asked her. She certainly hadn’t asked me to fill up the toy tea pot.

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‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I got it from in the toilet.’

I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! got off to a bad start. Frankly, the first episodes were bland.

But now it’s in full swing and at its best. I predict that rapper and YouTuber Aitch will win – just putting it out there.

Having been a contestant myself in 2012, I still exhaust anyone in the room with: ‘That was my bed… there’s a camera there they don’t know about…’

And on and on I go until I realise, I’m boring them. I need to learn to stop!

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The issue of Rachel Reeves lying about her reasons for taxing working people – so Labour can make even bigger welfare payments – is serious than many realise.

When politicians lie in such a brazen way, they discredit democracy, undermine confidence in the Government and bring shame on Westminster.

The Speaker of the House, Lindsay Hoyle, will have no choice other than to become involved. The Chancellor lied at the despatch box, after all.

I know the Speaker. We were MPs together for 18 years. I am sure he is a man who understands that his own legacy depends on upholding the integrity of Parliament.

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There is no place for Reeves to hide. She will have to resign.