Ephraim Hardcastle
WAS the Queen amused (or otherwise) to discover David Cameron had chosen the same theme as herself for his Christmas Eve message – ie, the plight of Christians worldwide? The PM had the opportunity to read the text of HM’s broadcast in advance. So he could have chosen a different theme. At least he didn’t suggest changes to the monarch’s broadcast. Tony Blair did this once, according to a source, ‘but it was a mistake he never repeated after receiving an icy response’.
DAME-to-be Barbara Windsor, 78, has said of her most famous film scene, when her brassiere flew off in 1969’s Carry On Camping: ‘It’s also in the all-time Top 10 British movie scenes, which is quite something.’ Hopefully the rehabilitated gangster’s moll won’t reprise this epochal moment in film comedy history at the palace when her damehood is awarded in the New Year.
APROPOS Cameron, his understandable knighthood for his brilliantly successful election guru Lynton Crosby is a new low, say rentaquote Labour MPs. What about Labour’s less successful strategist, Spencer Livermore, becoming Baron Livermore of Rotherhithe? No mention is made of that, unsurprisingly.
RE Aussie-born Crosby, how will Australia’s Republican-minded prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, react? He’ll find this a calculated snub to his own hatred of such titles. Knighting Crosby also overrides the will of a Commonwealth prime minister, putting the Queen of Australia (ie HM) in an awkward position. Since she’s unlikely to fly there again, this is a matter her heir Prince Charles might have to explain to Turnbull.
THE high-maintenance Lord Speaker, Baroness D’Souza, pictured, always needs two seats when invited to public events, I am advised. She prefers to arrive berobed, her trainbearer in attendance. The last Lord Speaker, Baroness Hayman (2006-11), attended most events in mufti. But who’ll tell forceful Lady D’Souza to desist?
CROONER Sir Tom Jones, 75, has never retained any of the female undergarments thrown at him, he says, explaining: ‘I’m a sex symbol, not a pervert.’ Mercifully, Sir Tom’s 2016 tour schedule doesn’t include Sri Lanka. Its president, farmer’s son Maithripala Sirisena, 64, says that the organisers of a recent concert by Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias, 40, should be ‘whipped with toxic stingray tails’ for allowing female fans to throw lingerie at him. Surely Iglesias and his fans, too!
MONTY Python veteran John Cleese, 76, tweets: ‘I see the next Tour de France will start in Germany. However, this will not be the first tour of France that originated in Germany.’ Indeed not, but neither is it the first joke about Germany’s propensity for ‘touring’ adjacent nations.
THE PM appeared on Sky News in a black Berghaus fleece. The day before, on ITV News, it was a North Face jacket. Is Dave considering a post-No 10 career as a Boden catalogue model?
E-mail: ephraim.hardcastle@dailymail.co.uk