Ephraim Hardcastle
ON arrival in South Africa, Meghan Markle declares: ‘I’m here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of colour and as your sister ...’ No mention of her official role as a princess of the United Kingdom, as confirmed on son Archie’s birth certificate?
JOHN Bercow’s ejection of his soother from his pram over the Queen’s prorogation of Parliament has not prevented the Squeaker indulging his passion for tennis – and Roger Federer in particular. He was courtside in Geneva at the weekend, wearing his RF T-shirt and watching his hero in the Laver Cup – Europe versus the Rest of The World. With his resignation nigh, surely there’s a vacancy for a fleetfooted and gabby ball boy on the international tennis circuit?
HAS Labour’s Shami Chakrabarti lent her supportive falsetto to the party’s Abolish Eton plan to get rid of public schools? She was certainly singing a different tune some years ago when she wanted to get her son into Eton. He is now quite content at Dulwich College.
JENNIFER Aniston, pictured, has never played a superhero but the airline pilot flying her on a belated 50th birthday weekend trip to Mexico must have thought she possessed superior powers. Shortly after take-off, he summoned her to the cockpit. He told her they had a tyre missing, reports the New York Times, ‘and they would have to return to Los Angeles’. Despite this distraction, he landed safely.
LAUNCHING his memoir, David Cameron found himself in illustrious company in the book charts, saying: ‘I am told I am in the top two. So, it’s a choice between a story of life in a divided society under a terrible dictatorship – or else there’s a book by Margaret Atwood.’
FORMER Tory MP Jerry Hayes wonders how International Trade Secretary Liz Truss ‘accidentally’ or ‘inadvertently’ granted new export licences for military equipment to Saudi Arabia when they are banned by law. ‘It’s depressingly simple,’ he says. ‘She is as thick as mince.’
HAVING moved to Australia seven years ago, Anglo-Indian TV presenter Anjali Rao says she has been unable to land a full-time job because of her accent and skin colour. Anjali, 45, who is best known in the UK for her work on Sky News and Channel 5, adds: ‘It has been very hard, extremely hard, in this country for me. It basically killed my career.’
PLAYWRIGHT Alan Bennett’s verdict on Boris? ‘I loathe him,’ he says sweetly, revealing that he has ‘spoken’ to the PM’s dad Stanley – they both attended Oxford’s Exeter College. ‘I felt like saying,’ he adds, ‘‘Why didn’t you bring your son up to tell the truth’’?’