Ephraim Hardcastle
AS I predicted, the Duchess of Sussex is having a ‘baby shower’ – meaning Meghan’s friends in New York shower her and the baby with presents. If this includes the usual ‘gender reveal’ game, will we mind if Americans learn the sex of the next royal baby before we do?
LABOUR’S ‘ prince across the water,’ former MP David Miliband, pictured, has been in town, meeting Prince Charles for a chat at Clarence House. What was that all about? ‘Maybe Charles thinks David will be his first Labour prime minister,’ suggests my source.
CHARLES and Camilla’s visit to Cuba next month isn’t really historic, as officials make out. His party-loving great uncle – king Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936 – enjoyed anything-goes, pre-revolution Havana in 1946, 1948, 1954 and 1955 with his thrice-married American wife, Wallis.
COMMENTING on loony Leftie Derek Hatton’s re-admission to Labour after 34 years, feminist campaigner Julie Bindel says she shared a taxi to Belfast Airport with him after a TV programme, recalling indiscreetly: ‘He bragged about having been up all night s******* a 24-year-old, then up early to see his grandson play football. Horrible man.’ Fancy!
ACToR Sir Tony Robinson, 72, a Blair-era Labour bigwig, says: ‘The Bennite sect that runs it has an iron grip on the levers of party power and has no interest in providing a welcoming space for those who don’t buy into its revolutionary strategy.’ Quelle surprise!
SCREENWRITER Jed Mercurio, who created the BBC’s Bodyguard and Line Of Duty, is impatient with anyone picking holes in his plots, telling Pilot TV magazine: ‘These smug c****. I really don’t have much respect for people like that, and I would advise them to try saying it to my face. They can just f*** off and die.’ Jed sounds like a nice chap, doesn’t he?
THE BBC’s Father Brown, starring Mark Williams and Sorcha Cusack, finished its seventh series last month. Based on the stories of Gk Chesterton, they have earned considerable overseas sales and have been streamed on Netflix. So why no transition from afternoon telly to peak time? A BBC source says: ‘Too religious for the trendies at Broadcasting House.’
LABOUR’S Angela Rayner says comrades can see former deputy PM Lord Prescott in action for just £25 at her upcoming constituency dinner and fundraiser. Frisky bruiser Prescott, 80, tweets to Miss Rayner, 38: ‘What can I say? I’m a cheap date.’
ToNY Blair yearns for a political comeback, but the seven Blairite Labour MPs who have quit the party shouldn’t invite him to be their leader. A Survation poll suggests that would spontaneously combust their new party at birth.