The Daily Telegraph’s Mandrake column suggests that Maureen Lipman pulled out of a cruise organised by The Oldie magazine because she could not stomach the thought of spending time with Richard Ingrams — a vociferous critic of Israel.

Completely wrong, Lipman tells us. “I’m not going on the cruise because I have to work and also because I was not happy with the way they advertised it as ‘cruise with Maureen Lipman’.

“I regularly tell him [Ingrams] what I think of him but it would not have stopped me going on the cruise.

“He’s anti-establishment and anti most things, so it’s hard to say he is antisemitic. We have always got on very well. It’s a shame I cannot change his views but that’s not why I’m not going on the cruise.”