Ephraim Hardcastle
SHADOW Brexit minister Sir Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, has resigned from a well-paid consultancy position at top law firm Mishcon de Reya following his elevation to the Labour front bench. So he should. Mishcon is among the law firms involved in a legal challenge over the UK leaving the EU.
EX-assistant commissioner Cressida Dick is suggested as a successor to departing Met commissioner Sir Bernard HoganHowe, despite being in charge during the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, mistaken for a terrorist, in 2005. Why so? ‘She’s got copperbottomed pants,’ enthuses my source.
LA-Di-DA actress Emilia Fox, 42, pictured, announces: ‘Producers probably think it’s too late for me to be a Bond girl, but i would love it.’ And why not? Her father, Edward Fox, 79, was Bond boss M in 1983’s Never Say Never Again.
THOSE attending the late Duke of Westminster’s memorial service on November 28 at Chester Cathedral will have to provide proof they knew Gerald and pass a security check. The family’s instructions warn: ‘All applications will be subject to a vetting check, and your application is viewed as consent for this to be undertaken by Cheshire Constabulary.’ It was easier to get into the Queen’s 90th birthday service at St Paul’s in June.
TALENTED TV critic Jaci Stephen, 57, who is campaigning against Marriott group after being mistaken for a lady of ill repute at one of its hotels, is supported by novelist Celia Brayfield, 71. The latter recalls arriving at a very posh London hotel with Richard Burton’s thenfiancee (later widow) Sally Hay: ‘Sally was wearing her engagement ring, a solitaire diamond about the size of a quail’s egg, and we were both smartly dressed. No sooner had we set foot in the lobby than some under-concierge bloke zoomed over to demand, “Ladies, are you iN THE RiGHT PLACE?” ’ Disgraceful.
RONALD Kessler, author of The Season: Inside Palm Beach And America’s Richest Society, says Donald Trump gave him a tour of his Florida estate. Opening a door, Trump said: ‘This is a secret passageway that goes all over the house. So if I want to visit someone in another room, I can do it without security people watching me.’
BOB Dylan’s Nobel Prize will please the Duke of Edinburgh, who keeps a book of Dylan’s art, The Drawn Blank Series, in his library at Buckingham Palace. i like best his anti-drugs 1965 song, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, about a dopetaking binge in Mexico, which concludes: ‘i started out on burgundy / But soon hit the harder stuff / Everybody said they’d stand behind me / When the game got rough / But the joke was on me / There was nobody even there to bluff / i’m going back to New York City / i do believe i’ve had enough.’
BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew, flying to Bangladesh, passes on a topical travelling tip: ‘I always wedge Marmite jars in the toe of my shoe.’