Ephraim Hardcastle
AS I predicted in February, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle want donations to charity, not wedding gifts. They mention seven charities, including Crisis, which helps the homeless – a rebuke to Windsor Council leader Simon Dudley, who wanted his streets cleared of the homeless on the big day?
BBC interviewer Mishal Husain, 45, pictured, publicly praises Radio 4 Today colleague Sarah Montague, 52, after the latter – paid around £150,000 – complained publicly about a gender pay gap on the show. Ms Husain says on Twitter that Ms Montague offers an ‘unflinching, articulate’ view. Make of that what you will. Incidentally Ms Husain earned around £100,000 a year more than the unflinching, articulate Ms Montague.
PROMPTED by a royal source, I asked in February why the Commonwealth has never nominated the Queen for the Nobel Peace Prize – a story which finally appeared this week in The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian. We’re told Commonwealth leaders might discuss the matter. All it takes is for one of them to fill in a nomination form.
SKY’S Adam Boulton, 59, asks Tony Blair: ‘You don’t feel embarrassed that the whole history of your premiership has damaged Britain’s integrity?’ Blair angrily replies: ‘I don’t think it has, by the way. I think you’re completely wrong about that.’ Interestingly Boulton has been married to Blair’s former No 10 ‘gatekeeper’ and close friend, Anji Hunter, since 2006.
SOPHIA Loren, 83, talks in an interview about her upbringing in war-torn Italy: ‘My childhood always follows me to this day, but the memories do fade away. I have a lot to be thankful for.’ Mocked for being illegitimate, she lived in poverty with her mother, grandparents and other relatives in Naples, hiding in a ‘ratinfested tunnel’ during air raids amid ‘drunkenness, death and childbirth’. Puts the pathetic wails of today’s #MeToo generation into perspective, doesn’t it?
HAVING once called the PM Theresa May ‘a dead woman walking’ in the paper he edits, the London Evening Standard, Tory ex-Chancellor George Osborne, 46, now comments about the still-seething UK/Russia poisoning row: ‘Take a lead from the way Theresa May is handling this case – and keep the spotlight on Moscow.’ According to The Spectator, Osborne recently had a meeting with Mrs May. Intriguing, no?
BLAIRITE writer David Aaronovitch, 63, writes a nasty ‘review’ in The Times of Miles Goslett’s new book, An Inconvenient Death, about the mysterious death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly, who cast doubt on the dossier justifying military action against Iraq. He sneers: ‘It stinks, really, does this waste of publisher’s, purchaser’s and reviewer’s time and money.’ Aaronovitch is chairman of the Index on Censorship, which says: ‘Everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution.’ Except Goslett, I presume he means.