Ephraim Hardcastle
CULTURE Secretary John Whittingdale’s pathetic failure, inter alia, to force the BBC to disclose the earnings of top earners, must be good news for Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, 55. The anti-establishment satirist (so called) is allegedly paid £20,000 for every episode of Have I Got News For You – ie, £400,000 a year. And he’s been on it for 26 years. Worth every penny, say his friends. Besides, they add, Radio 4’s Eddie Mair is said to earn even more.
THE Queen winning a Tesco gift card prize, at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, is a long-awaited publicity coup for the supermarket. They’d been close to getting the royal nod in 1999 during the state visit of Hungary’s late President Goncz, who died last year aged 93. He wanted HM to accompany him to a Tesco store. She sniffed a PR plot and pulled out. Goncz in retirement liked to check out the bargains at Tesco’s store near Budapest airport.
DONALD Trump is interviewed tonight by Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, 45, pictured, the reporter he vilely suggested was menstruating after she criticised his campaign for the US presidency. Why publicise him further? Because his nastiness has done neither any harm. He has the Republican nomination locked up. She’s in line to succeed Barbara Walters as America’s top female current affairs star.
THE Queen’s off-the-cuff remarks about ill-behaved Chinese guests are quickly forgotten – a blessing for Earl Peel, 68, HM’s senior adviser. He introduced police commander Lucy D’Orsi to the Queen, saying she had been ‘seriously undermined by the Chinese… tell your story’. Which the officer did, while Peel stood beside cameraman Peter Wilkinson, listening to the Queen’s comments, knowing they were being recorded.
BAHRAIN’S King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa perched with the Queen during her 90th birthday extravaganza. Encouraged by the Prime Minister – he seeks trade deals with the Middle East nation – HM is helping to rehabilitate the king internationally after his police were accused of civil rights abuses in 2013. The rich desert monarch generously helps finance the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
KIRSTIE Allsopp is asked (by Stylist magazine) what has she never understood. Celebrity saints such as Angelina Jolie might say fear of migrants, rape in war zones or other popular concerns. Miss Allsopp, 44, says: ‘People who don’t plump cushions! They get sat on and crushed, and look messy. Why wouldn’t you plump them back up? I don’t get it.’ My heroine.
JUSTICE Secretary Michael Gove claims he’s gripped by The Archers’ storyline about pregnant Helen Titchener, remanded in custody for stabbing husband Rob, telling Radio Times: ‘Helen’s story has brought welcome attention to the real problems many women face from coercive and controlling men.’ It’s also handy for politicians anxious to tickle voters’ tummies if an election, or referendum, happens to be looming.