Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCE William’s enthusiasm for exposing the underhand tactics used by the BBC and Martin Bashir to secure the notorious Panorama interview with his mother is about to be sorely tested. Filmmaker Mark Williams-Thomas, who set the ball rolling on Jimmy Savile’s posthumous downfall with his 2012 The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, is working on a new investigation – Diana: The Ultimate Truth. But won’t it be impossible without extracts from the interview itself being included? That would raise William’s hackles. After Lord Dyson’s report into the Bashir affair, William said: ‘It is my firm view that this Panorama programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again.’ How will William, still keen on anything that further undermines Bashir and the BBC, react if the Corporation does release segments of his mother’s 1995 ordeal?
SHADOW Foreign Secretary David Lammy demands an explanation for Boris’s hosting of a virtual quiz in Downing Street. In such matters, isn’t Mastermind booby Lammy on thin ice? He appeared on a celebrity edition of the cerebral quiz and claimed Marie Antoinette won the Nobel Prize and Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII.
COMPARING Boris with mischievous schoolboy William Brown is disputed by Nicholas Bennett, editor of the Just William Society Magazine. ‘A better comparison is Billy Bunter, the Fat Owl of the Remove at Greyfriars School,’ Nicholas explains. He adds: ‘Bunter (pictured) would deny, despite the crumbs on his extensive waistcoat, that he had been in the study, that there wasn’t any cake in it and anyway it was only a small cake – and if there was a cake it must have been eaten by the cat.’
WIDOWED father-of-six and GB News anchor Colin Brazier, whose spouse Jo passed from cancer in 2018 aged 55, is contacted by a civil servant who wants to speak to his wife. ‘I explained she was dead,’ says Colin. ‘He then kept referring to my “ex-wife”. I said no, she was my “late wife”. We were married when she died. The distinction was lost on him.’ He adds: ‘As a society, we are increasingly illiterate about death and reluctant – or too apathetic – to use the right words to describe what it does to people.’
MICHAEL Sheen’s portrayal of Leeds United manager Brian Clough chopping up his predecessor Don Revie’s desk with an axe never happened, says ex-Leeds player Johnny Giles. ‘It was plain wrong,’ he says, describing the 2009 film The Damned United as an ‘absolute disgrace’. Giles tells football magazine Backpass: ‘If you ever see a movie based on fact, forget about it because they make it up. There were things in there that were outrageous.’ Back of the net, Johnny – as Alan Partridge might observe.
ROBERT Peston describes himself as ‘part nerd and part geek’, explaining: ‘Which is now what young people call a neek.’ Collins dictionary defines a neek as ‘a dull or unpopular person, especially one who is interested in technology’. Is ITN’s political editor displaying remarkable selfawareness or is he just having a giraffe?