Ephraim Hardcastle
FORMER defence secretary Geoff Hoon being ordered, we’re told, by Tony Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell to burn evidence of the illegality of invading Iraq mirrors Anthony eden’s instruction to incinerate Cabinet papers dealing with the Suez invasion. Broadcaster Michael Cockerell was told by eden’s then chief whip Ted Heath that cabinet secretary Sir Norman Brook destroyed evidence that eden had collaborated with the French and Israelis to stage the action. Cockerell asked Heath: ‘What did you feel about a cabinet secretary going off and destroying secret documents, which if they had been made public would prove the prime minister had lied to the Commons?’ ‘The cabinet secretary was doing his job,’ harrumphed haughty Heath.
WITH Kazakhstan descending into civil war, has Prince Andrew sent a message of support to his friend, former president Nursultan Nazarbayev? In 2015, Andrew arranged for Nazarbayev to have a private lunch at Buckingham Palace with the Queen and himself – an honour even Commonwealth leaders struggle to get. His son-in-law Timur Kulibayev bought Andrew’s Berkshire home, Sunninghill Park, in 2007 for £3million over the asking price. Doesn’t the maxim ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’ work both ways?
ITN boss Deborah Turness cracked open the bubbly yesterday after announcing her appointment as the chief executive of BBC News. She replaces Fran Unsworth on a salary of £400,000 – a formidable £60,000 a year more than departing Fran. But someone give a consoling hug to Jonathan Munro, who left ITV News after he was passed over for the job as editor to become deputy dawg at BBC News. Just when it seemed he was in with a serious chance of replacing Fran, his old boss Deborah swoops in ahead of him. Was he blamed for rehiring Bashir?
THE death of New Zealand writer Keri Hulme has yet to elicit a response from Dame Joanna Lumley, pictured, who was one of the Booker Prize judges when Keri won the prestigious literary award in 1985. Joanna didn’t vote for Keri describing her novel, The Bone People, as ‘unreadable’. ‘Over my dead body’ was her decisive cry to chairman Norman St John-Stevas.
MAN of action Grant Shapps, interviewed by GB News yesterday from his Hertfordshire home, had a Union Jack behind him and his ministerial red box open on the shelf behind him. The box was empty. Was that because teacher’s pet Grant, the Transport Secretary, had finished all his homework? Or was the box merely a prop to remind us what an important chap he is?
EVEN millionaire playboys contract Covid as Spectator columnist Taki confirms, explaining that after three days when he feared ‘curtains’, he is now back drinking, smoking and staying up late. But how many 85-year-olds get the infection snogging what he describes as ‘the wrong girl?’