Ephraim Hardcastle
WOULDN’T it have been better to delay the commissioning of HMS Queen Elizabeth until the £3.1billion, 65,000-ton aircraft carrier had completed her sea trials, during which a serious leak was found? ‘The need to bring it forward was to justify (then Defence Secretary) Sir Michael Fallon’s decision to name 2017 the Year of the Navy,’ says my source. ‘Prior to commissioning, sea trials are supposed to identify any deficiencies needing correction.’ TORY MP Anna Soubry, 61, clearly enjoys talking on TV about being subjected to nasty online attacks over being a Remainer. Perhaps she should consult singing ex-Cavalryman James ‘You’re Beautiful’ Blunt, 43. He mocks Twitter trolls who attack him, telling Radio 4 that he envisages them as sad creatures sitting at their computers in darkened rooms ‘with their trousers around their ankles’. RAILWAY Children child star Jenny Agutter, 65 today, is unhappy that naked footage of her younger self is widely viewed on the internet, complaining: ‘In the (1971) film Walkabout, there was a sequence in which I swam naked in a natural rock pool in the Outback. It was a scene about innocence.’ In fact, Ms Agutter had saucy scenes in Logan’s Run (1976), Equus in 1977, China 9, Liberty 37 in 1978, Sweet William in 1980 and An American Werewolf in London in 1981, pictured. Mercifully, she keeps her nun’s habit on as Sister Julienne in the current Call The Midwife on BBC TV. WHAT’S the point of Radio 4’s Today show having ‘guest editors’ – Prince Harry being the star turn this year, ‘interviewing’ former president Barack Obama? It’s Harry we want questioned, not Obama. Previously they’ve managed to enlist as guest editors the publicity-prone Sarah Ferguson in 2004, and Queen Noor of Jordan in 2005. Otherwise, this selfindulgent exercise involves so-called celebrities, a demeaning use of licencefee broadcasting. APROPOS Prince Harry, isn’t it time he took his bride-to-be Meghan Markle – the future Princess Henry of Wales – to the Principality? He hasn’t visited Wales this year. Neither has the Duchess of Cambridge, the next Princess of Wales. Naming royals after different parts of the UK suggests the family cares for all parts of the kingdom. Would one visit a year be an imposition? The Prince of Wales has a house there and fits in a Wales Week of official engagements every year. THERESA May is expected to spend Christmas Day going to her parish church in the morning, helping serve the elderly their lunch and then cooking for her husband and herself at home. Not for this PM the luxury of entertaining friends while servants do the work at Chequers. David Cameron used the grace-and-favour country retreat extensively but Mrs May not so much. We pay £700,000 a year to staff and maintain Chequers. Can’t this fascinating house – bequeathed by Viscount and Viscountess Lee of Fareham in 1921 – be open to the public to defray staffing costs?