Ephraim Hardcastle
VOICING his opposition to grammar schools, Labour’s Lord Prescott, 78, recalls being parted from an unnamed childhood sweetheart: ‘We’d been forcibly separated. Not because we’d grown apart or even because there was someone else… we parted because I wasn’t good enough to pass a test. She’d managed to pass the 11-plus. I did not.’ He adds, in his Sunday Mirror column: ‘I sent her a love letter pledging my undying love. She sent it back correcting my spelling and grammar mistakes.’ Does his wife Pauline – described as ‘Chester’s answer to Elizabeth Taylor’ – correct the old booby’s atrocious grammar?
THE Queen won’t be pleased by The Great British Bake Off’s move from the BBC to Channel 4. HM can’t abide advertisement breaks. But at least she has flunkeys capable of recording shows and ‘fast forwarding’ through the ads.
FORMER No 10 policy chief Camilla Cavendish, pictured left, ennobled by David Cameron in his resignation honours list, is introduced on Radio 4’s Today show as ‘Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice...’ Today’s Sarah Montague, 50, pictured right, (in private life Lady Brooke, wife of baronet Sir Christopher Brooke), inquires: ‘What is the defence of an honour, not least for yourself?’ Camilla, 48, replies: ‘I feel relatively comfortable, because I do have a long history of campaigning.’ Why didn’t she add: ‘…and what is your explanation for being Lady Brooke?’
CANADA’S PM Justin Trudeau has persuaded Prince William and Kate to bring their children George and Charlotte with them on their visit there next week. Locals say the plan is for Trudeau’s three children – Xavier, eight, Ella Grace, seven, and two-year-old Hadrian – to bond with their royal guests. The republican cause in Canada is struggling. So Trudeau’s demonstration that he has pulling power with the monarchy does him no harm.
THERESA May takes a more principled line on honours than her predecessors. So David Cameron might have to wait longer for his elevation to the Lords. I fancy Cameron might be offered a Garter Knighthood, which is in the gift of the Queen. HM will have to forgive his most egregious indiscretion: that she had ‘purred down the line with pleasure’ after he told her by phone the result of the Scottish referendum.
DYING of leukaemia, brilliant poet, broadcaster and writer Clive James, 76, is disappointed with BBC2’s Newsnight and its ‘culture correspondent,’ snivelling know-all Stephen Smith. He arrived to interview James about his (likely to be last) book, Play All, about TV box sets – ‘announcing proudly’ that he never watched them. James says: ‘I should have instructed my granddaughter’s dog to chase the grinning dolt into the street.’