Hardcastle Ephraim
STAR Wars hero Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, 66, says: ‘Princes William and Harry visited the set one day. I said, “Look, my father is Lord Vader, my mother is Queen Amidala, my sister is Princess Leia. Doesn’t that make me royalty?” William said yes, but Harry wasn’t so sure.’ LOUCHE Angus MacNeil, Western Isles MP, was a guest on Alex Salmond’s chat show on President Putin’s favourite channel, RT. Stung when the former SNP leader was accused of ‘taking the Kremlin’s roubles’, Nicola Sturgeon declared an exclusion zone around RT’s sofas for her ministers. MacNeil, long a loose cannon, was exempt as part of an SNP Westminster cabal that pays little heed to Bute House. Still, the selection seems less scraping the barrel than digging beneath. HOW will Prince Harry spare sensitive Meghan from Sandringham’s bloody, Boxing Day ritual, pheasant shooting? Led by Prince Philip, who has shot (an estimated) 30,000 pheasants in his time, the royal princes enjoy this annual shoot. Womenfolk are expected to visit the killing fields to admire their skill. The Queen was once photographed mercifully wringing the neck of an injured bird. APROPOS Meghan, some thought she might become Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Why so? Because Wallis Simpson, the first American divorcee to marry into the Royal Family, enjoyed that accolade in 1936 and some Americans see Meghan – both are pictured – as her modern-day equivalent. Except that Harry is fifth in line to the throne and is most unlikely to become king. Whereas twice-married US socialite Mrs Simpson set her cap at the future King Edward VIII, causing him to renounce the throne when their 1937 marriage was officially opposed. THE Speaker, John Bercow, has been celebrating his 15th wedding anniversary with wife Sally, their marriage having survived ‘Saucy Sally’s’ past, publicityattracting antics. Oddly (it seemed to me) he was congratulated by Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom and her opposite number, Valerie Vaz. Discussing how she’d retained Bercow’s affections, the leggy blonde confided: ‘I just used my feminine wiles and took John away for a dirty weekend he wouldn’t forget, which left him happy, if breathless.’ MADONNA says that a former friend, Darlene Lutz, took a pair of her satin panties and put them up for auction. Ms Lutz’s legal team claim the panties were freely given away – a charming Madonna custom, allegedly. They produced another pair allegedly given by Madonna to a dodgy boyfriend with a note saying: ‘My underwear for you.’ They were auctioned too. If all true, is it too late for Madonna, 59, to embrace respectability? Email: peter.mckay@dailymail.co.uk