Ephraim Hardcastle
CONTROVERSIAL Keith Vaz, 60, and his sister, Valerie, 62, both sit as Labour MPs in the Commons. Now the latter informs the parliamentary authorities: ‘I employ my husband, Paul Townsend, as a senior parliamentary assistant.’ MPs are paid £75,000, senior parliamentary assistants £40,000. So Vaz and family collect about £200,000 a year plus expenses. Worth every penny, surely!
PRESIDENT-elect Trump’s visit in 2008 to his late mother’s Scottish birthplace on the Isle of Lewis will feature in Sunday’s edition of BBC One’s Songs of Praise. Hymns will be sung at Stornoway High Church. Elsewhere in the Hebrides, taking account of the shocking allegations made against Mary Anne Trump’s newsworthy laddie, will they be crooning Andy Stewart’s popular ditty Donald, Where’s Your Troosers?
PRINCE Harry’s appointment by the Queen to succeed her as patron of both England’s Rugby Union and lessfashionable Rugby League is derided by former Wakefield Labour MP David Hinchliffe, 68, founder of the All Party Parliamentary Rugby League Group. He says: ‘I find it absolutely astonishing that we have quietly accepted at the apex of our sport someone who has never shown a scrap of interest in Rugby League and whose second home genuinely appears to be (Rugby Union HQ) Twickenham. In 2015, when the Rugby Union World Cup was held in England, Harry was president of the organising committee. Two years previously when the Rugby League World Cup was held here neither he, nor any other royal, bothered attending a single match.’ Princess Beatrice, 28, pictured, is said to be keen on becoming a royal patron. Might she be a fitting adornment to Rugby League?
COMIC Sir Kenneth Dodd’s services to music are underrated, argues eminent broadcaster Stuart Maconie, who elaborates: ‘He was the biggest British solo pop star of the 1960s, with sales that rivalled the Beatles and dwarfed Elvis. He had 19 top 40 hits. Tears is still one of the biggest-selling UK singles of all time. He is in many ways Bruce Springsteen with a tickling stick.’ Tickled he’ll be to hear it.
FORMER Labour home secretaryturned-broadcaster Jacqui Smith, 54, takes a swipe on air at Jeremy Corbyn’s media team, advising them: ‘Get your a***s in gear and stop embarrassing our party.’ Pot calls kettle black? Ms Smith resigned as home secretary in 2009 after an expenses scandal that featured a claim for pornography films purchased by her husband.
DAME Judi Dench, 82, nominated for an Oscar for her 2014 performance in the title role in Philomena, playing a mother whose out-of-wedlock son was sold by nuns to an American family, wasn’t impressed at her first meeting with co-star Steve Coogan, 51. The comedian was selected for the role of Martin Sixsmith, the BBC journalist who wrote a book about the case. Coogan reveals now: ‘First of all she said, “Who do you see as playing Martin Sixsmith?” And I said, “Well, we were thinking… maybe me.” And she said, “OK, and is that negotiable?”’ The dame takes no prisoners.