‘Brave’ Ken seeks lunch date with Greta

Ken Livingstone apparently has time on his hands since losing the London mayoralty to Boris Johnson. Recently, while browsing through the London listings magazine Time Out, he came across an interview with the actress Greta Scacchi (pictured), in which she revealed that her favourite Londoner was none other than Ken himself. Pleased as punch, Livingstone promptly put a call into her agent and asked her out to lunch. When the message was finally passed onto the 48-year-old actress, who is starring in The Deep Blue Sea in the West End, the old goat received a favourable response.

Says Scacchi: "He has left his number and I will certainly call him. I think people were very beastly to him when he was turned out of office, but I have good memories of him, particularly during the 1980s, when he was in charge of the GLC and was a very brave and independent spirit."

Scacchi, who made her name in the 1980s in films like Heat and Dust, set in Rajasthan, and White Mischief, about Kenya's Happy Valley set, will not be short of small talk should Ken's hoped-for lunch engagement ever occur. Like him, she is passionate about newts. "I have quite a collection in the water tank of the farm where I live in Sussex," she told the Daily Telegraph. "They are all great characters and I adore them."

They can also talk about children. Scacchi has a daughter and a son by two different fathers, while it emerged during the mayoral election campaign that Livingstone not only has two children with his partner Emma Beal, but three others from previous relationships.