Ephraim Hardcastle

HOLLYWOOD’S greatest living Lothario, Warren Beatty, 78, couldn’t have expected in the autumn of his days to have a transgender son who made announcements to the world. Stephen (born Kathlyn) Beatty, 23, his daughter-turned-son by his wife, actress Annette Bening, 57, says in a video blog: ‘I identify as a trans man, a faggy queen, a homosexual, a queer, a nerd fighter, a writer, an artist. I am going to have babies and give them onesies with “This is what a trans-feminist looks like” written on them.’ Stephen, who lives in Iowa with a boyfriend, Liam, wears feminine clothing and appeared unshaven on Facebook. PRINCE Charles’s controversial 15-page ‘contract’ for media organisations to sign, laying down what they can ask him, is rather undignified – especially since these TV encounters are arranged with a view to boosting his own interests. The Queen doesn’t need such contracts – HM doesn’t give interviews. But an old royal hand tells me: ‘In 1954 the Queen and Prince Philip were once caught on camera having a blazing row on the royal yacht, HMY Britannia. The Queen threw a shoe and a tennis racquet at Philip. Without being asked, the Australian film crew handed over their film and it was destroyed. Wouldn’t happen now!’ While Labour MP and ex-minister Caroline Flint got £500 for appearing on Andrew Neil’s BBC show This Week, her colleague Diane Abbott MP gets £700. Why the disparity? After all, Caroline, pictured, is Diane’s senior, having been a government minister. But neither should be paid, of course. Instead, they should donate their illgotten gains to charity in return for the free exposure. RE Honours List omissions, readers wonder why no knighthood for Dad’s Army cocreator Jimmy Perry, 92, and his old school friend, Radio 4’s Just a Minute presenter Nicholas Parsons, also 92? And isn’t a damehood due for 75-year showbiz veteran June Whitfield, 90? Former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown suggests why the Prime Minister, David Cameron, recklessly described opponents of bombing Syria as ‘terrorist sympathisers’, telling Sky News: ‘It was like that moment in a horror film when somebody’s shirt buttons start bursting and the beast leaps out.’ It’s been a while since Paddy’s beast leapt out. TEXAN ex-model Jerry Hall, 59, ditched her customary high heels while accompanying her prized new paramour, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 84, to a New York dinner. At 6ft tall without heels, she’d tower over 5ft 10in Rupert in her stilettos. Has Ms Hall discovered tact in old age? Explaining the ‘Tatler Tory’ scandal, the Old etonian neo-conservative commentator Douglas Murray, 36, says in The Spectator that ‘noxious’ young Tories find that the fictional Tv series House of Cards, featuring murder, betrayal and sexual deviance, ‘is a guide for getting ahead in business and politics’. He adds: ‘While young leftists tend to be propelled by envy, those on the right tend to be driven by greed, especially a greed for power and money, in that order.’