Hardcastle Ephraim

PRINCE William has upset officials by admitting that he hasn’t read all the briefing papers prepared for his visit. This leaves him unprepared to press home matters our Government wants him to raise. It appears that William has picked up the trick from his father, the Prince of Wales. Charles tends to ignore briefing papers that don’t interest him – ie, most of them – often leaving him underprepared. When he took the Queen’s place at the Commonwealth Summit for the first time, in Sri Lanka in 2013, some leaders were shocked at his ignorance on Commonwealth matters compared with his mother’s encyclopaedic memory. My source says: ‘Neither Charles nor William are as bad as Edward VIII, though. He rarely read briefings, which ended up covered in whisky rings.’ BROADCASTER Martin Bashir, 53, famous for his 1995 Princess Diana interview, appears to have influential friends at the BBC. He is rejoining after 17 years. Bashir had to resign from the US TV channel MSNBC after calling ex-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin a ‘world class idiot’ and ‘America’s resident dunce’ after she described US debt to China as ‘slavery’. He added sweetly that someone ought to defecate in her mouth – a punishment historically endured by slaves. Although he subsequently apologised for ‘deeply offensive’ and ‘ill-judged’ remarks, surely Bashir is most fortunate to secure a perch at the BBC – especially as its religious affairs correspondent.