Ephraim Hardcastle
JON Snow’s eyeball searing neckties remain mothballed as the Channel 4 news anchor nobly self-isolates. But what of News At Ten’s Tom Bradby, flying back from Australia via either Singapore or Hong Kong to resume ITN spouting duty after the Big Ben bongs tonight?
WHILE £120million has been allocated for Theresa May’s curious brainchild – 2022’s Brexit Festival – not a penny has been earmarked for the Queen’s platinum jubilee in the same year, celebrating her unprecedented 70-year reign. David Cameron grudgingly contributed £1million for her 2012 diamond jubilee with Tony Blair offering a measly £450,000 for her 2002 golden shindig. Buckingham Palace isn’t holding its breath for a contribution from Boris.
THE Queen will be at Westminster Abbey on Monday with her family and 2,000 others for the annual Commonwealth Day thanksgiving service. She won’t be following the example of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, who has cancelled tonight’s diplomatic dinner for 150 over coronavirus fears. HM, as always, refuses to change the diary even if threatened by terrorists or germs.
JOANNA Trollope, pictured, tells Woman & Home magazine that it’s normal for women to feel jealousy, fury or anger, adding: ‘You are not alone if you want to cut the crotch out of your cheating husband’s trousers!’ Joanna!
FORMER MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, now outed by Czech intelligence as a British spy in Prague during the 1970s, was successful in keeping his day job secret from his teenage daughter. She told her Hampshire boarding school classmates that daddy was a shoe salesman.
ECO-ZEALOT Ben Goldsmith has been using Twitter to denigrate hill farmers in his messianic quest for the ‘re-wilding’ of Britain, describing the farming method as Victorian-style ‘failed sheep ranching’. All fine and dandy. But how does earnest Ben, son of billionaire tycoon Sir James Goldsmith, reconcile this with being a non-executive board member of Defra?
DAME Hilary Mantel declines to compare Downing Street rottweiler Dominic Cummings with her own ‘power-behindthe throne’ hero, telling BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘No. I think Thomas Cromwell was far better dressed.’
SMOOTHIE chops former Tory trade minister Lord Young recalls his solution to obstructive civil servants, who told him he couldn’t do what he wanted. ‘I would invariably reply, “What a pity, could we meet this time tomorrow and you can tell me how we can?” And they always did.’
FORMER Labour minister Dame Margaret Hodge urges Eamonn Holmes to settle his £250,000 tax bill, saying: ‘He should pay, I don’t know how much he earns but he should pay and not get out of it.’ Over to you Eamonn, self-proclaimed market leader in the TV presenting lark.