VINCE SIDESTEPS STRICTLY ENTRANCE

As former This Morning host Fern Britton joins Ronnie Wood’s ex Jo for this year’s sequined extravaganza, the Lib Dem economics spokesman, 66, has said he’ll never appear.

“I think they would find it quite tricky because it would bring politics into the programme, which I suspect they’d find difficult. And also I’m not a beginner,” says Vince, who has been dancing since the Eighties and has won a number of ballroom trophies with late wife Olympia.

He told us at the Oldie literary lunch at London’s Simpson’s-in-the-Strand: “What they are trying to do on that programme is to see how showbusiness personalities can progress from nothing in a short time so I think there are probably two reasons why they haven’t asked me to go on.”