Ephraim Hardcastle
MEGHAN Markle is taking a citizenship test and attending a town hall ceremony with other immigrants to get a British passport. On her engagement, Kensington Palace confirmed that she would be applying for citizenship in the ‘usual way’ with no ‘special treatment’, making it difficult for the Home Office to fast track her case, or bend the rules. Prince Philip, the last foreigner to marry into royalty’s top tier, asked George VI’s permission to marry Princess Elizabeth in 1946 and when the engagement was announced nine months later he was a naturalised Briton.
MY note about Harry and Meghan moving into Kensington Palace’s Apartment 1 prompts a source to recall: ‘When the engagement was announced, William said of his brother, “I hope it means he stays out of my fridge, scrounging off all my food, as he’s done over the last few years.” If not, one of William’s Sandringham Christmas presents might come in handy: a fridge lock.’
DURING Charles and Camilla’s Gallic charm offensive there was no mention of her colourful family link with France. Her paternal grandfather, four times married womaniser P Morton Shand, who died aged 72 in 1960, was a resident of Lyon, where a divorce court judge advised him to leave France and ‘turn your attentions to another country’. He returned to England. The old roué was the father of Camilla’s papa, Bruce Shand, and also Baroness (Elspeth) Howe, 86, widow of former chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe.
OUTSPOKEN commentator Rod Liddle has triggered a Twitter tempest by describing the Aussie chanteuse Kylie Minogue as a ‘dingo’ (both pictured). His editor at The Spectator, Fraser Nelson, says: ‘None were more furious than me! I adore Kylie and have written about her merits before becoming editor.’ Let’s hope Liddle’s sold out London Palladium Q and A next Tuesday is not invaded by Kylie fans.
WHO Wants to be a Millionaire’s new host, Jeremy Clarkson, didn’t know the answer when asked who Boris Johnson succeeded as Foreign Secretary in 2016 (Philip Hammond). Clarkson, 58, might have lost interest in politics when his Chipping Norton chum David Cameron self-destructed as PM after campaigning for Remain in the referendum.
MENTIONING Jane Fonda’s announcement that she’s given up sex at 80 – saying she’s ‘closed up shop down there’ – Sky News presenter Jayne Secker, 45, comments saucily on air: ‘Should we be impressed the shop’s been open for so long?’ What would her employer, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 87, think?
HACKED Off founder Brian Cathcart fulminating on why MPs voted against Leveson 2 blames the DUP deal and ‘the ferocity of the Conservative whipping’. His supporter Max Mosley would surely have approved of the latter!