Ephraim Hardcastle
BBC religious affairs correspondent Martin Bashir will not be asked by his employers about allegations that he supposedly secured his notorious 1995 Panorama interview with Princess Diana by showing her brother Charles Spencer two false bank accounts, claiming staff were selling stories to the media. The BBC says Diana confirmed in writing that the bank statements played no part in her decision to be interviewed. Adds a BBC source: ‘Martin is seriously unwell so we are unable to put any questions to him.’ A spokesman says: ‘Everyone at the BBC is wishing him a full recovery.’
ARE salmon and cucumber ties spontaneously combusting at the Garrick Club over Tom Bower’s claim that Boris’s dad Stanley broke his mother Charlotte’s nose? Both Tom and Stan are members and ringside seats will be in demand when they next encounter each other. Fortuitously, Boris resigned his membership some years ago, but he must be wondering why he elevated Bower’s wife Veronica Wadley to the House of Lords. As Baroness Fleet, she took her seat last month.
OH TO be a fly on the nursery wall when William demands a high five from son George, pictured, over his team Aston Villa’s shock 7-2 trouncing of champions Liverpool. William manifests no disappointment at his son’s failure to follow in his football boots, saying: ‘I try not to be too biased, I said you can support anyone but Chelsea... so naturally he supports Chelsea.’
DAVID Hockney, unfazed by the Royal Opera House’s decision to sell his painting of former boss Sir David Webster for up to £18 million, confirms that he will continue his exile. ‘There are far too many bossy people in England now,’ he says. ‘When they banned us from smoking that was the start. And it’s getting worse and worse. So I won’t really return to England to live. I’m perfectly happy in France.’
WHO is backing actor Laurence Fox’s new political party Reclaim? Step forward City multi-millionaire Jeremy Hosking, who previously donated to the Vote Leave campaign and the Brexit Party. Hosking has a soft spot for odd causes, having bought several old steam engines and a stake in Crystal Palace.
GORDON Brown’s Downing Street attack dog Damian McBride says the former PM adopted a special tone of voice whenever he had to utter the dreaded name ‘Mandelson’. ‘That was done with a narrowing of the eyes and a knowing tone, like Sherlock Holmes smelling the wine glass of a poisoned corpse,’ recalls McBride, whose sensitive nature divined that the feeling was mutual.
SCRIBBLING her final Thomas Cromwell novel, Hilary Mantel rose at 4am to look at the sky and listen to the sea. ‘I would go back to bed at dawn, and for a couple of hours fall into a deep sleep,’ she says. ‘Once I dreamed I had won a tennis tournament, beating Navratilova.’ Perhaps she should have stayed up listening to the sea.