The Queen of the North " review
Octagon, BoltonCoronation Street star Pat Phoenix was once described by prime minister Jim Callaghan as "the sexiest thing on television". Yet Phoenix, who played the Street's rapier-tongued man-eater Elsie Tanner for more than 20 years, had a curious influence over Labour leaders. Harold Wilson invited her to No 10, while her hospital-bed marriage to actor Tony Booth made her, for a just more than a week, the mother…