Ephraim Hardcastle
ONE curious omission from all the wedding coverage: the thoughts of the US President. After recent bouts of cyber-incontinence, Donald Trump has been strangely silent on the biggest trans-Atlantic story of the moment. The new Duchess of Sussex may have been uncomplimentary about him in the past but that will not happen again. So, might this not be the time to bury the hatchet and offer some presidential congratulations? Meanwhile, Palace aides must now decide what to do with Harry and Meghan when Trump drops in on the Queen in July. A ‘prior engagement’ is not going to fool anyone. RECALLING his encounters with disgraced late Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, former BBC journalist Michael Cole tells Radio 4’s John Humphrys on Today: ‘I had dinner with him at the Reform Club and he spent the whole three courses telling me who was gay in the House of Lords and House of Commons... well it was a long list, I can tell you,’ adding: ‘He obviously hadn’t done his research, John. He made an obvious pass at me which I had no difficulty in fending off.’ Fancy! COLLEAGUES of News at Ten presenter Tom Bradby, 51, pictured – off work for four weeks with insomnia – were surprised to see him looking remarkably hale and hearty in his morning suit at the Royal Wedding on Saturday. Says one: ‘Fellow presenters, already stretched with Royal Wedding rehearsals, have been pressed into covering his shifts. Once again poor management. There has been no official word to staff about what is the matter with him.’ LORD Mandelson, who announced during an appearance on ITV that the Royal Wedding had ‘inspired’ him to consider marrying Brazilian partner of 20 years Reinaldo Avila da Silva, sought the help of late Labour colleague Mo Mowlam when first embarking on his gay romance. Mo, who died in 2005, said: ‘He phoned me and said Reinaldo was worried about how he’d be received and he wanted to talk to me and Jon [her husband] about the role of the wife. So they came to dinner, we talked to them both, and Reinaldo was much happier by the end.’ Mo never heard from him again, adding: ‘His failure is, when you are of no more direct use to him, to ignore you.’ WRITING as ‘a cynical republican’ about previous royal weddings, author Jan (formerly James) Morris, praises in a letter to The Times the marriage of Harry and Meghan, calling it ‘a very wise delight’. What’s the old trout after – a garter knighthood? ONE heroic Royal toper was missing from Harry and Meghan’s wedding celebrations: the Queen Mother. Lord Norwich, 88, tells a Channel 5 documentary about serving drinks to the QM, who died aged 101 in 2002. ‘I was told the Queen Mother liked a socking great gin and a tiny little touch of Dubonnet on the top. So I gave her a whopper and then went and looked after everybody else. I looked at the Queen Mother’s glass and it was empty, so I said: “Ma’am, can I get you another?” She replied, “Oh, perhaps a little more, it’s so delicious, don’t you think?” So I poured another enormous beaker full!’