Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCES Charles and William’s appearance together at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is a rare event. But court officials think it’s useful in that it plays down rumours of a rift between them over the collateral damage suffered by the heir to the throne and Camilla as a result of the ongoing Diana commemorations. But it’s a risky strategy in that it makes the contrast between the two more noticeable. Charles has another problem: he’s the natural choice to appear at the Queen’s side now that Prince Philip has retired, but each time he does so he has to sideline Camilla. Prince Andrew sat with HM in Balmoral’s church-bound limo on Sunday. Charles drove Camilla separately to Crathie Church. THE Royal Mews is looking for a liveried flunkey at a salary of £20,300, explaining that it is ‘a live-in role for which your salary will be abated’ – ie, the rent will be deducted. Oxford University has just splashed out £116,000 refurbishing the grace-and-favour mansion home of its £410,000-a-year vice-chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, who pledges to ‘tackle elitism’. She won’t endure the indignity of having her salary ‘abated’ to pay for her sumptuous accommodation. STAR songwriter Jimmy Webb, 71, recalls in a new memoir producing the 1968 hit song, MacArthur Park, sung by tipsy Irish actor Richard Harris, pictured. He says: ‘Richard would not undertake a trip to the studio without a giant, chilled pitcher of Pimm’s No 1 Cup – a traditional British concoction that tasted no more threatening than a strong cup of lemonade but packed the wallop of a bad-tempered Oklahoma jackass. When it was exhausted, the session was over. In the early hours of the morning we boarded his Phantom V Rolls and drove back to his flat.’ TORY MP Heidi Allen, who was elected in South Cambridgeshire in 2015, was briefly famous for signing her letters: From Heidi ‘Not Climbing the Greasy Pole’ Allen. She has since voted in favour of triggering Article 50, even though she had opposed Brexit, and dismisses talk of Old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg becoming her party’s next leader, considering him elitist. As if David Cameron (Eton and Oxford) and George Osborne (St Paul’s and Oxford) were horny-handed sons of the soil. A source says: ‘Ms Allen, who studied astrophysics, might now be eyeing the leadership stratosphere. And the greasy pole.’ WILL the Garden Bridge debacle end the honours prospects of Joanna Lumley, its chief supporter? Her campaigning and charity work – famously saving the Gurkha soldiers’ right to live in this country – is well known, but she hasn’t received further recognition after an OBE in 1995. Rumours of a damehood in the 2010 Birthday Honours proved unfounded. She was also tipped for a peerage but has had to watch other campaigning luvvies such as Joan Bakewell, Floella Benjamin and Michael Cashman get ennobled instead. Might ‘national treasure’ Miss Lumley, 71, have an Establishment enemy?