LUMLEY 2 : UK GOVERNMENT 0

You’d think that even a government as full of third raters as Labour in London would have “learned lessons” from the last time they were stupid enough to tangle with Joanna Lumley.

But no. Alas, one junior member of it was too thick to grasp that it was dangerous to so do, especially without checking facts, and clearing it with the PM. So he used parliamentary privilege to slander both Joanna and the company of solicitors that she was working with in the Gurkha campaign.

Kevan Jones (never heard of him but he is nonetheless another minister at the Department of Defence), giving evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Committee earlier this month said Ms Lumley and fellow campaigners had not done enough to explain to Gurkhas the new rules permitting any of them with more than four years' service to apply to settle in the UK.

There has been some criticism in the press of the way that some Gurkhas have been treated on arrival in the UK, but this can in no way be laid at the door of either Joanna, or the solicitors Howe and Co whom Jones also deprecated. It seems to me that the MoD, which is charged with co-ordinating this matter, is at fault for failing to ensure that veterans are put in touch with the service welfare organisations.

The hapless Jones criticised Ms Lumley’s silence on the matter; he said he found it irritating. However Joanna explained on radio this evening that she had agreed to work with Gordon Brown and Number 10 on the issue. She said: "Last year Gordon Brown took personal charge of the Gurkha issue. He asked us to deal with No 10 , out of the glare of publicity. We respected his request and kept our promise."

After putting up with weeks of rumours and then Jones’s remarks (made under parliamentary privilege), Ms Lumley, Howe & Co, and the Gurkha Justice Campaign called a press conference today at which Ms Lumley said she had come along “with a sense of regret, that we've had to come to this... clearing our names in public".

She said articles had appeared "which must have put doubt into the hearts of all the people who supported the Gurkha justice campaign". She urged the prime minister "to affirm that the policy is one that he still completely supports".

This afternoon Jones apologised to Ms Lumley for any offence his remarks had caused her, but he was unavailable for interview. Doubtless he was trying to extract a Nokia from his left nostril, aware that only the proximity of the election had saved his sorry ass from repositioning itself on the back benches.

Joanna confirmed that Brown had spoken with her on the phone after the press conference. He read out Jones’s apology and added one of his own and did indeed confirm his commitment to the policy.

Damned right. If these men are good enough to lay their lives on the line for the UK, the least we can do is see them settled here if that is what they wish.

Message to incoming government whoever they are. Don’t mess with JL. She’ll eat you for breakfast, and the British public will devour the leftovers.

Pictured: The truly Absolutely Fabulous Joanna Lumley; the truely abolutely unfabulous Kevan Jones and the statue outside the MoD, London, to the Gurkhas

PS: Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw said about Gurkhas: "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha."