The name’s Purnell, James Purnell, licence fee to kill for. The BBC strategy chief’s backroom staff think he looks a bit like 007, their secret outed during an interview with the London Evening Standard in which the photographer suggested he had “something of the Daniel Craig” about him.
“We’ve tried hard not to say that in front of him, and now you’ve gone and blown it,” laughed Purnell’s secretary. By strange coincidence Purnell was briefly at the National Youth Theatre with the future James Bond.
“Ooh, but I bet Craig wishes he’d worked at the Department of Work and Pensions [as Purnell did as a Labour MP and cabinet minister],” said his secretary.
Like James Bond, Purnell has hidden talents, including dreaming in French. He grew up in France where he lived a very French lifestyle but with “Radio 4 and crumpets,” he told the Standard.
Purnell is adamant that he is definitely not a hipster – “If you’re trying to be a 45-year-old hipster you should be, er, put right” – but struggled to be quite so unequivocal when it comes to the Milibands.
“I was always friends with Ed and David,” said Purnell, before adding: “When I said I was friends with Ed, that’s not completely right. I’m not friends with Ed anymore. David, yes, definitely.
“On the Ed thing: what feels wrong about saying that we’re friends is that it implies I’m round his house the whole time … but it also feels weird to say that we’re ‘not friends’ – too playground. We always got on in politics, but since then I’ve only seen him on business.”
But is he friends with Daniel Craig? Bon!
