Ephraim Hardcastle
WRITER Francis wheen’s 2006 BBC 4 film The Lavender List was the subject of an injunction by the late Baroness Falkender, previously No 10 secretary Marcia williams. She said its claims that she had written Harold wilson’s crony-rewarding ‘Lavender List’ of honours and slept with the Labour PM were untrue. However, they were repeated in print by her No 10 colleague Joe Haines without legal interference. Now she is no longer with us, will the BBC show the film – or has her ladyship had it banned for all time? A BBC spokesman says: ‘we wouldn’t comment on the terms of the settlement agreement and we have no plans to broadcast this programme again.’
WHEELED on at short notice to discuss the late Karl Lagerfeld on Radio 4’s PM, BBC bigwig Alan Yentob arrives in sweatpants. PM presenter Evan Davies mischievously repeats Lagerfeld’s opinion: ‘Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.’ Corporation ‘lifer’ Yentob seemed unamused.
THE Duchess of Sussex is relying on her own media nous during her New York baby shower trip. Is she concerned her essence is being filtered too heavily by palace officials? Some who like her character in Suits are disappointed with the muted real one. A royal source thinks she might return to social media, noting: ‘If the public accept Donald Trump managing his public image on Twitter, why not Meghan?’
ADELE is a much-discussed novel about a woman who craves degrading sexual encounters with strangers – not about the popular London chanteuse of that name. By Paris-based Leila Slimani, pictured, its French title was In The Garden Of The Ogre. Did the publisher Faber think Adele (£12.99) might shift more copies?
SPOON-BENDING psychic Uri Geller says he can prevent Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM, vowing: ‘with all my telepathic powers I am not going to let that happen.’ Couldn’t he use his powers to force a Corbyn apology for anti-Semitism?
SEEKING to rejoin Labour 16 years after his expulsion, raffish George Galloway tells Sky News: ‘I’m the man who beat Roy Jenkins’, referring to his 1987 general election victory in Glasgow Hillhead against the then SDP leader. Hinting that he has leading defector Chuka Umunna MP in mind, he adds: ‘I’m quite good at beating the leaders…’ Umunna has a majority of 26,285 in his Streatham seat.
BREXIT bogeywoman Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, has closed her Facebook account but won’t say why. She once attracted 2.5million followers but her popularity has faded over her open-door migrant policy and Germany’s faltering economy. Is she being trolled?
GEORGE Mendonsa, who has died aged 95, was the demobbed sailor photographed in 1945 kissing a woman he didn’t know in Times Square. Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt says Mendonsa ‘was grabbing every girl in sight’. Now he’d be prosecuted for harassment. Someone has defaced a Florida statue of the smooching pair with the graffiti #MeToo.