Ephraim Hardcastle
THE BBC gives generous coverage to Prince Harry’s attack on the Press and wife Meghan’s impending court case after her father’s release of a letter she had written to him. Might Auntie have an ulterior motive? Last month the Corporation apologised to the prince for showing an image of him being depicted as a ‘race traitor’ by an extreme Right-wing group. In addition, John Humphrys, in his new, must-read autobiography, ridiculed Prince Harry being invited to edit the Today show in 2017, dismissing it as ‘a PR exercise for himself and his family’. Of course, if they’re to lure another royal on to Today – ideally Meghan or Kate – the BBC must position itself as a supportive alternative to what they sneeringly refer to as ‘the tabloid press’.
PROROGATION 2 next week will put a strain on the Queen. Having had her summer holiday repeatedly disrupted by politics, she now faces having her regular Monday routine disturbed to open Parliament. HMQ enjoys weekends at Windsor and doesn’t return from there until lunchtime on Mondays. Off with their heads!
IAN Hislop, a Have I Got News For You panellist since the BBC TV show began in 1990, suggests it might soon be dropped, adding, ‘You never quite know how popular we are with our commissioners!’ If it’s true they’re paid £20,000 per show – or, an average of £10,000, say, since the programme started – he and comic Paul Merton have each made between £5million and £7million from the show. Isn’t it time for new snouts in the tough?
SO-called Queen of Mean Anne Robinson criticises the hair-do of Supreme Court judge, Cambridge-educated Lady Hale, advising readers of The Oldie that her ‘bonnet of hair [is] in need of a good cut and some highlights. It’s fine for cycling round Cambridge as a student but not, please, in the Supreme Court.’
LIKE Boris Johnson, Jeremy Clarkson has encountered Charlotte Edwardes, pictured, the attractive journalist who says the PM rested his hand on her thigh. After talking movingly to Ms Edwardes about the death of his mother, she reported that he said: ‘By the way, all the time I was talking about my mother, I could see your knickers.’ An oddly inharmonious addition, isn’t it?
THE death of respected newscaster Peter Sissons allowed BBC veteran Michael Buerk to pay tribute to his late colleague on Radio 4. He inserted a barb in his bouquet, however. Noting that Sissons had co-hosted the very first edition of Channel 4 News in 1982, he added: ‘That’s the programme everyone admires but nobody watches.’ True, but naughty!
PRINCE Harry’s declaration of war on the Press attracts the support of comedian John Cleese, 79, who says the royals don’t require publicity, explaining: ‘I think you’ll find that, in the sixteenth century, the English people knew about Henry VIII without needing to read the papers.’ A few hundred years later, of course, but a point for Harry to ponder.