Ephraim Hardcastle
When Lisa Jardine, who has died aged 71, chaired the human Fertilisation and embryology Authority from 2008 to 2014, a health minister rang to ask if she could exert pressure to fix IVF treatment for a patient who had been refused by medics and was connected to a national newspaper. Professor Jardine said she had the honour she wanted (a CBE), didn’t want another government job and that if a request of this type was made to her again she’d make sure it got into the media. Deep waters!
DID Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, vet the speech in which his colleague the Rt Rev Christopher Foster, the Bishop of Portsmouth, attacked George Osborne’s tax credit cuts as ‘morally indefensible’ (somewhat over the top, some think). My clerical source says: ‘Portsmouth doesn’t have to clear anything with Canterbury. He’s an independent entity, a prince of his own jurisdiction.’ The trendy churchman revised his Lords broadside in situ on an iPad.
CURRENTLY without a TV show, impressionist rory Bremner, 54, tells me he’s making ends meet on the dinner-speaking circuit. how much does he charge? ‘Less than William hague,’ he replies. Believe it or not, the former Tory leader and foreign secretary commands £10,000 a time.
THE prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson’s trip to Venice for BBC One’s Imagine series explored the question of whether Shakespeare was anti-Semitic when he created Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Fascinating, but what a shame he had to share the camera – and a gondola – with the BBC’s ‘creative director’ Alan Yentob, pictured, chairman of the disgraced Kids Company charity.
BARONESS Jay, daughter of the late Labour prime minister James Callaghan, says colleagues are ‘downcast and uncertain’ over their new party leader, adding: ‘Jeremy Corbyn apparently supports our abolition.’ Margaret is double-damned. She’s a life peer. And a hereditary peer in the sense that she owes her title to her father.
RETIRING Radio 4 Today show host James Naughtie – I’ll miss him – speculating that Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho will be fired by the team’s Russian oligarch owner, Roman Abramovich, startles studio staff by saying the Portuguese manager might soon be wearing ‘a pair of concrete overshoes in Russian concrete’. Which, ahem, implies a propensity for violence. Perhaps Abramovich, owner of a gigantic yacht, will invite Jim on his next Hebridean voyage to clarify the matter privately.
RUNNING for the US presidency isn’t for the faint-hearted. hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, 35, in Austin, Texas, to promote a book, is asked whether her father is Bill Clinton or Webb hubbell, a former law partner of hillary’s. her ambiguous-seeming reply: ‘I am so proud to be my parents’ daughter.’ Author roger Stone claims she so closely resembled hubbell, 67, that she has had plastic surgery on her nose, chin and lips.