Ephraim Hardcastle
HUGH Grant is rightly praised for his performance as ex-Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, accused of attempting to murder a former male lover, Norman Scott, in the BBC’s three-part series, A Very English Scandal. Given Grant’s sensitivity about his own five children-by-two-women private life – he’s a member of Hacked Off, campaigning to curb Press reporting – does he ever wonder if his masterly portrayal of the late Thorpe as a conscience-free hirer of hitmen might hurt the late politico’s family, including son Rupert, 49? Especially since a jury found Thorpe not guilty.
IRELAND’S pro-abortion referendum vote indicates that the influence of the Roman Catholic church there, which opposed reform, has waned. The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, says ‘our commitment to mothers and their unborn children remains unchanged’. And Pope Francis, in advance of August’s Vatican-approved World Meetings of Families in Dublin, has decreed that attendees will receive ‘plenary indulgences’, which guarantee entry to Heaven.
MAMOUDOU Gassama, the Malian migrant who scaled up the front of an apartment block in Paris to rescue a small boy dangling from a fourth floor balcony, is immediately given French citizenship by President Emmanuel Macron as well as a medal for courage. Our own honours system requires so much background checking by busybody committees that few remember a good deed by the time a gong is awarded. Yet when George VI created the George Medal for ‘acts of great bravery’ he stipulated that recipients should be ‘worthily and promptly recognised’.
OUR top female tennis player, Johanna Konta, 27, pictured, knocked out in the first round of the French Open, quotes Indian mystic Mahatma Gandhi: ‘Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself.’ An online troll responds: ‘Interesting... Gandhi has won the same amount of matches at the French Open as you have.’ Meaning none. Too unkind!
DASHING actor Nigel Havers, 66, reflects as a seasoned luvvie: ‘I’ve been trying to be younger for years and I can’t get away with that any more.’ Hoping to be cast as his late father, Sir Michael Havers QC, in a film about the barrister defending the Rolling Stones after their 1967 drugs arrests, he says: ‘I think I might be too old. He was only 40-something then…’
WHY did the PM, Theresa May, seemingly working hard to honour the Brexit vote, endure a ‘lengthy’ (his description) meeting with arch-Europhile Kenneth Clarke, 77? A source says: ‘Clarke is one of the ringleaders of the Remainer rebels. I think she’s seeing quite a few of them to talk them into staying onside. Can’t imagine there’s much chance in his case.’ Unless she wants his advice on how to stay in power if she has to let the Remainers have their way?