Ephraim Hardcastle
THE Carrie Symondsinspired cancellation of the Derbyshire badger cull came after she and Boris Johnson had morning coffee with Prince Charles at Birkhall. If the prince had known, there might have been some flying lattes. In one of Charles’s infamous spider memos to Tony Blair, he writes: ‘I do urge you to look again at introducing a proper cull of badgers where it is necessary. I, for one, cannot understand how the “badger lobby” seem not to mind at all about the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an overpopulation of badgers. To me, this is intellectually dishonest.’
ABIDING by the Queen’s rule of not talking politics at Balmoral, Boris was delighted when HM, briefed that he’d written a Churchill biography, initiated a discussion about the great man over dinner. Boris, six months old when his hero died, was transported with her insights into Churchill, who was PM when she came to the throne. Boris was engrossed. Ah, the true Churchill expert.
JACOB Rees-Mogg admits to surprise at the reaction to the image of him reclining on a House of Commons bench, confiding: ‘I did find it a little odd. I really didn’t expect to become a gay icon.’ Nor did we!
THE London-based actress Liv Tyler, pictured, complains of the rigid pecking order in our society, saying: ‘As an American, I find the British class system really oppressive.’ Liv’s scruples didn’t prevent her attending Princess Eugenie’s wedding at Windsor Castle last year, an experience she described as ‘magical’.
DAISY Goodwin, creator of ITV’s Victoria, is considering some sensational script ideas for future segments, including Prince Albert’s plan to divorce the Queen shortly before his early death in 1861. ‘I’ve spoken to someone who has seen the divorce papers in the Royal Archives at Windsor,’ she tells me. ‘He might have thought she was losing her mind and a divorce was his way of taking control.’
NICHOLAS Soames is unlikely to attend Robert Mugabe’s funeral, despite the close friendship the Zimbabwean tyrant developed with his late father Christopher, Rhodesia’s last governor. Just after the handover of power, Soames senior stuck his head into Mugabe’s Rolls-Royce, barking: ‘Now, don’t f*** it up!’ Mugabe far exceeded the fears of our dimwit FO.
TONY Blair remains mute about Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen about proroguing Parliament. Wise, considering his 2003 persuasion of HM to send troops into Iraq, on the false basis of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, a decision condemned in 2004 by the UN as ‘illegal’.
DAME Edna Everage jokingly announces her engagement to Meghan Markle’s father Thomas, telling a Sydney news conference: ‘He is such a lovely man. We’re getting very, very close. We haven’t committed acts of immodesty yet.’ Edna, alias Barry Humphries, is feverishly drumming up ticket sales for an Australian tour.