Paul Kirkley: In the pocket of Big Horse, yea or neigh? Plus culture wars, snow and statues in Santa hats

And it may also be coincidence that Randox paid disgraced Tory MP Owen Paterson £100,000 a year in consultancy fees. Just as it may well be coincidence that Paterson’s late wife, Rose was the chairman of… Aintree Racecourse.

But as they say in the betting rings of Newmarket and Aintree – what are the odds?

This month’s dispatch from the culture wars frontline comes courtesy of Nick Fletcher, the hard-of-thinking Conservative MP for Don Valley, and his explosive truth bomb that Britain’s crime epidemic is all a result of them casting a woman as Doctor Who.

“In recent years,” the honourable – ahem – member told Parliament during a debate to mark International Men’s Day, “we have seen Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Luke Skywalker and The Equalizer, all replaced by women, and men are left with the Krays and [Peaky Blinders’] Tommy Shelby. Is there any wonder we are seeing so many young men committing crime?”

Hmmmm. Quite a lot to unpack there, but maybe let’s start with the fact that Luke Skywalker is still a man – albeit a dead ghost man – and has even grown a big bushy beard to reinforce the point. The Equalizer is indeed played by a woman – Queen Latifah – though whether Edward Woodward’s original street vigilante was a good role model for boys trying to stay out of trouble is questionable at best. The Ghostbusters, meanwhile, were briefly women, but are now men again. So if someone nicks your bike or ram-raids your local off-licence, I guess it really must be Jodie Whittaker’s fault.

I wonder if, for Mr Fletcher, it all started to go wrong in the ’80s with Supergran – altogether now: “Stand back Superman, Ice Man, Spider-Man, Batman and Robin, too / She makes them look like a bunch of fairies, she’s got more front than United Dairies…” How terribly emasculating.

Later, the MP was forced to issue a statement in which he claimed his point “in no way linked Doctor Who being female to crime being committed by men”, which is definitely a dignified thing for an elected representative to need to clarify. (It was also untrue, as he’d explicitly made the link.)

Anyway, as the nation’s men, now bereft of the guiding influence of Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi, spiral into a life of drug-fuelled crime, I’m just grateful that, after 50-odd years, Doctor Who is finally played by someone who represents people like me. That’s right, Jodie Whittaker is the first Yorkshire Time Lord. I never thought I’d live to see the day, frankly.

Speaking of God’s Own County, as my more insufferable fellow Tykes insist on calling it (they’ve clearly never been to Doncaster on a Friday night), my sympathies to the customers who spent three days and nights trapped inside Britain’s highest pub during last week’s heavy snowfall. (Yes, there was heavy snowfall, but obviously not in Cambridge, where the nearest we get to the magic of the North Pole is that tent on Parker’s Piece.)

The Tan Hill Inn in the Yorkshire Dales is famous for its lofty elevation, 1,732ft above sea level, and for appearing in that Everest double glazing advert where Ted Moult dropped a feather, for reasons which now escape me. Anyway, on the night they got snowed in, the punters had gone along to watch an Oasis tribute band – which is surprising, as Yorkshire people don’t normally hold with turns from the wrong side of the Pennines.

As Christmas horror stories go, I have to say that Cambridge’s own M R James has got nothing on this one. I mean, being trapped inside a remote pub with a ghost or a rampaging werewolf is one thing – but an Oasis tribute band? That’s genuinely spine-chilling. How many times can you listen to Wonderwall before you start praying for an early death? (Answer: once.) Live Forever? No, it just felt like it. Cigarettes and Alcohol? I’m sorry, sir, you can’t smoke on these premises. Stop Crying Your Heart Out. No, really, madam, please stop crying. I know you didn’t want to be dragged to see an Oasis tribute band in the first place, but we’re all just trying to make the best of it.

At what point the 72-hour ordeal, I wonder, did they have to move onto songs by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and – God help them – Beady Eye? Still, it could be worse, I suppose. Imagine being trapped in a pub for 72 hours with the real Liam Gallagher. (Can you tell that I was always more of a Blur man?)

‘Mystery surrounds’, as we say in the newspaper trade, the sudden appearance Santa hats on the heads of carved figures on St John’s College Chapel.

The hats – giving a jolly, festive air to the gothic griffins and other statuary – appeared in late November, reviving memories of Cambridge’s legendary ‘night climbers’. Though, in this case, there’s a suspicion they actually used a drone, which does rather take the romance out of it somewhat. Night Droners just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Anyway, I suspect the prank will be met with fury in some quarters. Not because of the act itself, but because of the timing – you now how unreasonably cross some people get at the appearance of anything Christmas-related before December 1.

Regular readers of this column may know that I like to keep a running total of cabinet galaxy brain Dominic Raab’s greatest pronouncements. And now to add to ‘Britain is an island – who knew?’ and “Chaos in Afghanistan – who saw that coming?’, we can add this weekend’s comments on law and order.

Asked by Andrew Marr whether an alleged party at 10 Downing Street last Christmas ought to be investigated for breaking lockdown rules, the justice secretary breezily explained that “the police don’t normally look back and investigate things that have taken place a year ago”.

It’s certainly an interesting idea – that the police don’t have time to waste investigating crimes that have already happened. Instead, presumably, they should be arresting people for crimes in the future, like in that really interesting documentary Mr Raab saw a while back. What was it called again? Oh yes, Minority Report.

If nothing else, I think we can safely say the justice secretary has never watched an ITV 9pm drama, or an episode of New Tricks. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to TV’s next Agatha Christie adaptation, in which the doughty Inspector Raab gathers all the suspects in the drawing room, and announces: “I’m afraid the victim is already dead. Case closed, let’s all go home.”

They say you’re never more than six feet from a rat and, lately, it also feels like you’re never more than 15 miles from Tom Cruise filming Mission: Impossible.

In recent months, the Hollywood star has been popping up all over the UK: scoffing a chicken tikka masala in Birmingham, landing his helicopter in someone’s garden in Warwickshire, sailing his superyacht into Greenock… And now, as reported the Cambridge Indy, he’s been spotted in the skies over Cambridgeshire, going up tiddly up up and down tiddly down down in a WW2 biplane as he filmed scenes for M:I 8 2,000 feet above RAF Duxford.

Of course, being Tom Cruise, he wasn’t content to just fly the thing: he had to hang upside down on the wing, for reasons that will presumably become clear – if not entirely credible – when the film comes out.

At 59, you might think he’d want to slow down a bit (I’m nine years younger than him, and I already feel a bit wobbly on a step-ladder), but I guess he might as well enjoy it while he can: give it another 25 years, and his idea of Mission: Impossible will be using the upstairs bathroom.

Finally, thanks to all of you for putting up with my nonsense for another year. I’ll be back later this month with my traditional end-of-year review. Until then, have a safe and happy Christmas (and avoid the Quality Street green triangles – they’re gross).

Paul Kirkley was named Columnist of the Year at the 2021 UK Regional Press Awards. Read more from Paul Kirkley every month in the Cambridge Independent.