Ephraim Hardcastle
THE BBC’s North America editor, Jon Sopel, 58, tweeted emotionally during Sunday night’s concert for the victims of the Manchester bombing: ‘Dear Your Majesty, how about a Damehood for @arianagrande in the birthday honors (spelt the American way)? She has been MAGNIFICENT #onelovemanchester.’ Should BBC types lobby HM over honours for their idols? ‘Not without clearing it with the BBC’s royal liaison officer,’ says my royal source.
HISTORICAL novelist Hilary ‘Bring Up The Bodies’ Mantel, 64, wrote about Islamic hatred of the West in her 1988 book Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, which was based on personal experience. She says in the Radio Times: ‘We have lost our sense of history but Islamic militants talk about the Crusades as a present, living insult. Their sense of history is something seething beneath the surface, an active force in present-day affairs.’
FRENCH cobbler Christian Louboutin, 54, famous for his red-soled, stilettoheeled shoes, muses: ‘When times are tough and you’re in a year where there are wars, or problems, fashion gets more important. The more things are morose, the more you need excitement. A shoe is protection against morosity.’ His Cherry pumps – ‘off-white organza, handembroidered with red cherries and tonalgreen metallic sequins and beads [with] razor-sharp point toe and pin-thin stiletto heel’ – cost £1,145. Enough to cause ‘morosity’ in itself.
LABOUR’S former deputy leader, Harriet Harman, 66, says Jeremy Corbyn should stand down if his party loses the general election because ‘the buck stops with you, and you can’t blame anybody else’. She cites three Labour leaders who did this: Michael Foot in 1983, Neil Kinnock in 1992 and Gordon Brown in 2010. Why didn’t Ms Harman stand for the leadership? ‘She lost her nerve,’ suggests a source.
FORMER health minister Edwina Currie, 70, who says she found dating website partners sex-obsessed, wrote of her affair with former Tory premier Sir John Major, conducted in the 1980s. She counsels moderation, saying that canoodling ‘once a fortnight is about right’. Clearly Sir John appreciated her moderation. Gallantly, he insisted on sitting at the taps’ end when they bathed together, she confided. I’m unable to get this touching scene out of my mind.
THE sudden ostracism of Qatar by its neighbours – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE have severed all links with the oil and gas-rich emirate, accusing it of ‘embracing’ terrorism – puts our Royal Family in a tricky position. The Qataris are neighbours of the Queen with an estate near Windsor Castle. The King of Bahrain was a guest of the Queen during last month’s Royal Windsor Horse Show. The Prince of Wales stayed with the rulers of the UAE last November. A fortnight today, the desert folk are all expected in the Royal Enclosure as Royal Ascot gets under way. Who’ll be asked up to the Royal Box for tea with the Queen?
Email: peter.mckay@dailymail.co.uk