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Sir Ivan Rogers, who was the UK’s most senior civil servant in Brussels, says he quit his job because Theresa May, far right, and her Downing Street team refused to listen to him and that he might have been forced out if he hadn’t left.

“It’s perfectly possible that I would’ve been pushed,” he told us. “I chose to resign in the way that I did very deliberately.” Rogers, right, was at Waterstones Piccadilly for the launch of his book, 9 Lessons In Brexit last night. The former civil servant resigned as head of UKREP, the representation of the UK to the EU, on January 3, 2017, nine months before his term was due to end.

Last night he explained that he despaired of No 10, who were a brick wall. He would have been “fine” working “ridiculous hours” including “all weekends” and “never hav[ing] a break”, “but you have to feel that someone is listening to you. If you feel that you’ve no longer got any traction or purchase in the system,” he said, “then there’s no point in carrying on.”

Rogers would have stayed in the Belgian capital — “lots of people, opposite numbers, were joking with me that I would last longer in Brussels than my member state”.

Asked whether DExEU was always going to be a political disaster, he laughed. “I was opposed to setting it up and I think it was a mistake... It’s a layer that you don’t need in the UK system. You don’t need No 10, and a Cabinet Office machine and DExEU ... You don’t have it on the other side, you have Task Force 50 and the Directorates General.”

Rogers, who had worked for both the Cabinet Office and No 10 under Tony Blair and David Cameron, knew the system would become over-complicated. “It was bound to end in tears. It duly did.”

“DExEU was structurally an error. The department of International Trade is, in my view, also structurally an error. So I think two bad errors were made at the outset.”

Confusing agenda

A bizarre sexism row is erupting on the City of London Corporation’s central council after a male councillor has insisted that his colleagues refer to him as “chairwoman”. Councillor Hugh Morris asked to be called chairwoman after Catherine McGuinness, the organisation’s most senior politician, requested that she be referred to as “chair” of the policy and resources committee, rather than “chairman”. “Hugh Morris needs to be dragged into the 21st century,” an anonymous City councillor told The Londoner, “preferably while passing through the 20th on the way.”

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Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, has been frozen out of the party’s Brexit policy meetings for a year. Shadow frontbenchers Keir Starmer and Barry Gardiner have joined leader Jeremy Corbyn at the meetings but not Watson, who told the PoliticsHome website: “It’s news to me that this committee has been meeting.”

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Newsreader Krishnan Guru-Murthy says his wife begs him to lay off M&S custard tarts because they make him fat. But he still buys two every time he visits the shop. “I eat both of them between leaving M&S and getting home,” he tells the Off Menu podcast, “and then I dispose of the evidence so that my wife never knows.”

Gwyneth averts a Shakespeare tragedy

Harvey Weinstein allegedly tried to fire Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare In Love and have an American play the Bard instead — until Gwyneth Paltrow put her foot down. “At the last minute, Harvey wanted Ben Affleck to take over and play Shakespeare,” she reveals in an interview with Variety to mark the film’s 20th anniversary. “I said, ‘No, you can’t do that. You have to have an English person.’”

Fiennes had no idea until now. “That’s news to me,” he says. “I feel — wow — really indebted to Gwyneth...”

Harvey Weinstein has issued a rare public statement to dispute Paltrow's comments. "'The only other contenders for the role of Will Shakespeare were Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke, no one else," he insists, adding that Affleck "did a terrific job as Ned Alleyn, which is the role he was considered for."

Fashion Week calls it a wrap with a secret garden bash

London Fashion Week came to an end last night, and actors Rose McGowan and Laura Pradelska entered a Secret Garden Party at the RSA Vaults on the Embankment. They were celebrating designer Richard Quinn’s new collection with the help of Perrier-Jouët. Elsewhere, Lady Amelia Windsor and actor Cressida Bonas were at RIXO’s London presentation at Café De Paris in Piccadilly. Bonas, ex of Prince Harry, recently marked her 30th birthday at Cliveden House which, coincidentally, is where The Duchess of Sussex stayed on the eve of her wedding.

Also last night, Helena Bonham Carter — soon to be seen as Princess Margaret in The Crown — was at the Shrimps show, while singer Lily Allen sat front row at Izzue.

Yesterday she paid tribute to Karl Lagerfeld, who died aged 85. “You made me feel like a princess,” she tweeted. “I never quite understood what you saw in me but I am forever grateful for the support that you and Chanel have given me over the last 15 years.”

SW1A

Renovations are taking place on the Islington property Boris Johnson shared with wife Marina Wheeler QC and their four children. The property is currently being offered for rental — it is available from the end of March for £2,000 per week — but the works suggest a sale could be on the horizon. Boris, meanwhile, is understood to have moved in with girlfriend Carrie Symonds.

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More evidence that Nigel Farage’s influence is on the wane. Asked if there was a meeting with Donald Trump on the agenda when they both attend the Conservative Political Action Conference next week, a representative tells us: “No. Not this time.”

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Theresa May has appointed a new pollster, James Johnson. Johnson has been internally promoted, Politico’s Playbook reports, from his post as a special adviser in Downing Street. Surely this isn’t the sign of an early election? Please?

Quote of the Day

‘At the end of a long hard day at Defra​ I’m always happy to raise a pint of full cream milk to thank them’

Environment Secretary Michael Gove​ says dairy farmers have his support