Ephraim Hardcastle
JOHN Bercow’s falling on his sword should guarantee him a gong. With the Opposition united in praise, the motion requesting the Queen to elevate him to the peerage should pass easily. Though the vetting committee on new peers might have a view. When Bercow’s predecessor Michael Martin was forced from the chair in 2009, the chairman Lord Jay objected on the basis that appointments were meant to ‘enhance rather than diminish’ the Lords. Quite what their lordships will make of a cantankerous and increasingly rude Bercow, who leaves behind unresolved allegations of bullying, remains to be seen.
ITV’s Tom Bradby remains Harry’s go-to media man as he packs his pith helmet for Angola. He will be joining Diana’s son as he recreates her poignant anti-landmine stroll shortly before her death in 1997. The BBC’s Nicholas Witchell hasn’t been asked, but then Harry might mischievously point amiable Nick into No Man’s Land.
EMBARRASSINGLY for his rivals, Andrew Neil’s new BBC2 politics show has more viewers than both Channel 4 News and Robert Peston’s late-night ITV programme. Are viewers finally tiring of Channel 4’s Jon Snow Leftie rants?
JENNY Eclair, pictured left with Su Pollard, has had enough of being mistaken for the Hi-De-Hi! actress, saying: ‘The difference between me and Su is: She has better legs and she can sing, however, she’s never published a novel and I’m on number 5.’ She adds: ‘She’s 69, ten years older than me. She’s a pensioner.’ Miaow!
INTERVIEWING BBC director-general Lord Tony Hall, John Humphrys pays a curious tribute, recalling Hall’s time as his junior on the Nine O’Clock News in the 1980s. ‘You didn’t get drunk,’ Humphrys mewls, adding: ‘Just for the record, most sub-editors went off to the bar and came back to the Nine O’Clock News rather the worse for wear. And you didn’t. So there you go. I can see why you got where you are today.’ Surely the Welsh inquisitor is entitled to some apple polishing on his last day.
NADINE Dorries is campaigning against social media abuse, advising: ‘Not reading responses is a good way to deal with this.’ Surely not the same Nadine who, in a tweet, described Andrew Neil as ‘an overweight, orange, toupee- wearing has-been’?
ALAN Johnson, the best leader Labour never got, explains Corbyn’s daft Brexit policy to BBC Radio 4, saying: ‘You’d have to have a very large foot in the door to keep people on the doorstep long enough to explain it.’