Ephraim Hardcastle
THE Queen’s festive family lunch cancellation is little consolation to her royal staff. They’ve had their own do cancelled for the second year. Up to 300 footmen, pages, maids and assorted staff were looking forward to the beano this week at Windsor Castle (transferred from Buck House because of building work) where the booze flows, food is plentiful and a band plays next to a specially laid dance floor, costing HM an estimated £30,000. The last one was in 2019, shortly after Andrew’s disastrous encounter with Emily Maitlis. He cast a dampener on the evening by turning up and glad-handing whichever staff weren’t quick enough to hide behind the curtains.
ENVIRONMENT Secretary George Eustice’s announcement that the bill banning big game hunters from bringing their trophies home is on its way, two years after its appearance in the Queen’s Speech, fails to disguise government feet-dragging on issues. It will not go before MPs until later next year. Why don’t advocates enlist Prince William? When he got himself worked up about the sale of ivory in 2018, a bill was speedily introduced and received royal assent on December 20. That’s the way to do it.
VISITING Rome, Joanna Lumley, pictured, is accosted by an old woman who compliments her on her TV travelogues. ‘By old I mean I thought she was on the wrong side of 95 at least,’ explains Joanna, 75. ‘She said the kindest things to me in broken English, adding as she trundled off: “I hope I look like you when I am your age”.’
PLAYING Dynasty’s Alexis, Joan Collins falls out with chum Donald Trump when he calls the producers and asks for a part as one of her lovers. ‘I said something rude about that,’ recalls Joan. ‘And then he riposted: “I wouldn’t want to be one of Joan Collins’s lovers either, on or off the screen”.’ Chance would be a fine thing Donald!
ASKED by The Spectator what qualifies as a rule-breaking party, Michael Gove posits that if at 9pm he opens a Guinness at his desk and sips it as he goes through his Red Box, he is still working. ‘Probably in an impaired way,’ he adds. ‘But if someone across the room is doing exactly the same, does it become a party?’ Ask Keir Starmer!
VETERAN BBC political broadcaster Michael Cockerell calculates he’s asked nine prime ministers whether they’ve ‘had any doubts about their ability’ to fulfil the role, recalling: ‘When I put that to Ted Heath, he said: “No! Why should I?”’
TURNING literary sleuth, Charles Moore contacts Lady Antonia Fraser to ask if she had based Sir Oswald Montdragon, the villain in her 1955 Robin Hood, on fascist leader Oswald Mosley. ‘Of course I did,’ she tells his lordship, adding, ‘I was 22 when I wrote it, memories of my father Lord Longford’s body blue with bruises from the Oxford Town Hall Mosley meeting before the war to the forefront.’ What about the Sheriff of Nottingham?
Email: john.mcentee@dailymail.co.uk