Hardcastle
WITH police seeking a no-fly zone over Windsor Castle, the Christmas crossbow intruder security review identifies a lack of protection officers for the public grounds surrounding HM’s now seemingly permanent residence at Windsor. And with budget restrictions limiting a major increase in protection, the Queen may find her wings clipped. Sources suggest the review is likely to recommend a curtailment of her driving herself to the Royal Lodge chapel. In addition, who cannot but empathise with the bespoke plod who has to advise the monarch that her regular horse rides in the park may in future be off limits?
REACTING to Nigel Farage’s support for Novak Djokovic, Sir Andy Murray cheekily tweets: ‘Please record the awkward moment when you tell them you’ve spent most of your career campaigning to have people from Eastern Europe deported.’ Nigel’s retort? ‘Dear Andy, you clearly don’t understand politics or the Brexit campaign but are filled with prejudice. Concentrate on the tennis and, a word of advice, crack a smile every now and again.’
AFTER the sudden death of Labour’s Jack Dromey, Tory energy minister Greg Hands notes of his Commons schedule today: ‘Never happened to me before that I am scheduled to answer a question from an MP who has sadly died. I hope there is some way one of his colleagues could ask the question in his honour.’
MEANWHILE, Harriet Harman, who was married to Dromey for nearly 40 years, recalls their 1982 nuptials in her memoir A Woman’s Work: ‘There was no wedding ring, no white dress, no flowers, no vowing to obey, no father giving me away. Neither my, nor Jack’s, parents were invited.’ The union of Harriet, niece of a countess, and Jack, son of an Irish navvy, was one of the happiest in politics.
JEMIMA Goldsmith, pictured, a co-producer of Golden Globenominated TV drama Impeachment – about the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal – rages against the downgrading of the awards ceremony due to diversity and ethical rows. ‘It’s not how I’d imagined this… the Golden Globes awards ceremony cancelled and in bed with Covid,’ she tweets. How many gongs did the show get? ‘We didn’t win,’ she wails.
JOANNA Lumley’s damehood has been a long time coming, partly because she raised the hackles of then PM Gordon Brown when, leading the Gurkha Justice Campaign, she forced a U-turn on removing the Gurkhas’ right to settle in the UK. Is her damehood a returning of a favour after she lobbied Prince Charles for Boris’s ill-fated white elephant Thames garden bridge? Getting Charles’s endorsement for a project originally conceived as a tribute to Princess Diana was always a long shot.
BARRY Humphries, in a shameless bout of name dropping, recalls attending a party at the Hollywood home of Roddy McDowall, telling The Oldie: ‘Standing at the buffet, cautiously spooning dollops of a cartilaginous curry on to our plates, Lauren Bacall said to me: “The food here is always a crock of s**t, but we come for the guests – or most of them.” I was left to wonder into which category this beautiful woman had consigned me.’