Ephraim Hardcastle
WHAT does the Queen think about the 9th Duke of Wellington, 72, who leads the Brexit-wrecking Remain peers in the Lords? Privately, HM is believed to favour the Brexiteers. The BBC’s respected Laura Kuenssberg reported in 2016, after the referendum: ‘At a private lunch the Queen asked her guests, “I don’t see why we can’t just get out. What’s the problem?”.’ The monarch was a friend of the present duke’s father, Valerian. He died aged 99 on New Year’s Eve, 2014. She had a long conversation with the current duke, Arthur, at the funeral. Afterwards, it was presumed that Arthur, a former MEP for Surrey West, would get a Garter knighthood, like five of his eight ducal ancestors. This hasn’t happened yet, although there have been vacancies in the Order.
ANTONIA Romeo, 43, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Trade, is busy publicising the launch of its LGBT Mentoring Programme for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Miss Romeo, pictured, announces: ‘Fantastic example of the brill DIT team working to make the department the most inclusive in Whitehall. Love is great.’ But are the ‘brill team’ any good at what they’re paid for – to help our international trade?
THE Australian-born Dowager Countess of Harewood, Patricia Lascelles, who has died aged 91, precipitated the first royal scandal since the sensational 1936 abdication of Edward VIII. In 1964, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, Mark, by the 7th Earl of Harewood, a grandson of George V. The Earl then publicly insulted his wife, Marion, by putting up a genealogy chart listing Mark as his son and Patricia as mother at Harewood House. His distressed wife sued for divorce before remarrying – only to be betrayed again. Her second husband, bisexual Liberal politician Jeremy Thorpe, was ruined professionally after being prosecuted and acquitted of conspiracy to murder his gay former partner, Norman Scott. She died at 87 in 2014.
PAYING affectionate tribute to her onetime rival Elizabeth Taylor, Dame Joan Collins, 84, now says of the late star, who died in 2011: ‘We all miss her.’ Dame Joan insists that she, not Ms Taylor, was the first choice for the film role of Cleopatra in 1963 but missed out after refusing to canoodle with sleazy Hollywood executives, adding: ‘I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. Elizabeth Taylor got the role.’ I’m sure she isn’t suggesting Ms Taylor complied.
TURKISH president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is here on Tuesday for talks with Theresa May. Will he meet Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson? In 2016, Boris, of Turkish descent himself, reacting to Erdogan’s efforts to have a German comedian prosecuted for his offensive poem about Turkey’s leader, won The Spectator magazine’s Offensive Poetry Competition with this entry: ‘There was a young fellow from Ankara, Who was a terrific w***erer, Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didn’t even stop to thankera.’