Ephraim Hardcastle
ALMOST exactly 23 years after the death of Princess Diana, her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, claims she wasn’t sufficiently supported by the Royal family after the deterioration of her marriage to Charles. ‘She was a young single mother working hard and she had no supportive network,’ he says. ‘She had no proper mentoring, the organisation was overwhelmingly masculine, even though there was a woman at the top of it.’ he adds: ‘that is a real shame and I think it doesn’t really reflect well on the Royal family.’
ANDREW Marr throws his teddy out of the playpen over churches, museums and galleries closed by the pandemic, raging in The Spectator: ‘I’m getting increasingly irate at the prissy, prim, self-congratulatory way so many organisations are priding themselves on doing sod all for the paying public.’ A nation quakes, Andrew!
THE failure of Emily Maitlis, pictured, to win a Bafta for her TV demolition of Prince andrew surprised rivals at Sky who won with coverage of the hong Kong crisis. Says Sky’s Mark austin: ‘We didn’t expect to win, in fact I texted Emily to congratulate her in advance.’ Stick to the day job, Mystic Mark.
ANGLO-Indian Lakviar Singh, a 1986 graduate trainee contemporary of Nick Robinson’s, accuses the BBC of racism, claiming to have suffered a nervous breakdown after years of abuse. ‘I joined the BBC a happy, highly motivated person full of life,’ Lakviar writes in a Guardian letter. ‘I left it a broken person, unable to live without being medicated, with no sense of purpose.’ Hardly the ideal ‘Good Luck in Your New Job’ message for incoming director-general Tim Davie.
EXCITABLE tory peacock Sir Desmond Swayne complains of compulsory maskwearing: ‘I think it’s awful having to cover your face and go about like Darth Vader.’ Observes Labour MP Jess Phillips: ‘You want to try wearing a bra just for one day mate.’ Will Sir Des step up to the challenge?
NEW Lib Dem leader Ed Davey ate slimline rival Layla Moran for breakfast (metaphorically speaking) but faces a tougher battle to stop ballooning back to his previous 15 stone. Friends blame his student days working in a pork pie factory. When an earlier weight loss led to rumours he was plotting to topple former Lib Dem boss Nick Clegg, Davey jokingly urged such stories to be taken ‘with a large pinch of salt and a glass of wine’.
CAN the declining popularity of the girl’s name Karen really be blamed on its association with dimwit white women? alas, tory MP Karen Bradley did little to enhance the moniker’s reputation when, as Northern Ireland secretary, she admitted not knowing Catholics and Protestants voted for different parties. Boris fired her.