Ephraim Hardcastle
Camilla’s appearance with the Queen, and without Charles, at Westminster Abbey today to mark the 750th anniversary of its rebuilding is significant. HM honouring Camilla in this way, in the building where Charles hopes she will be crowned Queen Consort, is as close as the monarch can get to publicly endorsing the idea. KATE’S Pakistan tour has been shoehorned into just five days to minimise her absence from her children. The Foreign Office had hoped that the children would join in the visit but Kate put her foot down. George has been to Australia and New Zealand and was joined by Charlotte in Canada, Poland and Germany, but it seems that school and routine are now more important than helping the FCO with some ‘panda diplomacy’. Sending cute cuddly things overseas has always worked well for the Chinese. Labour MP Chris Bryant contradicts a supporter who says he’d be the first gay Speaker if he succeeds John Bercow. ‘I don’t think so... I might be the first openly gay Speaker,’ says Bryant. George Thomas – in the chair from 1976 to 1983 – was outed as a secret homosexual after his death by labour MP leo Abse, who revealed that Thomas, subsequently Viscount Tonypandy, was blackmailed and had to borrow £800 to pay off one such extortionist. DISCUSSING how she preserves her sexpot looks at 54, Elizabeth Hurley, pictured, acknowledges frankly: ‘ I’ve had Botox before. I don’t have it now, I would again.’ She jokily adds: ‘I’ve just been acting. You can’t really have Botox when you’re doing a movie!’ Ah! What she will do for her art! TOBIAS Ellwood shares his Portcullis House keep-fit regime with BBC Radio 4 listeners, describing his reaction when he sees a lift full of fellow MPs answering the division bell. ‘I shout, “look! The stairs are working!” then I run down the stairs, pressing all the lift buttons as I pass!’ He adds: ‘Yes, I am Tobias Ellwood and I am 12 and a half years old.’ Not that old, surely! THE arrest of Belgian King Philippe’s aunt Princess Marie-Esmeralda, 63, during an Extinction Rebellion protest in London prompts the question: how militant are our green Royals? Charles has been banging the environmental drum for decades, William bemoaned the planet’s plight, interviewing David Attenborough in Davos, Kate is green-fingered to her elbows and Harry yodels the praises of curious Greta Thunberg. But no danger of any of them joining Marie-Esmeralda in the clink. ADRIAN Chiles, the broadcaster with a face for radio, tells his BBC listeners about his dream of sharing a bedroom with John Humphrys, getting out of bed and saying to slumbering Humphrys, ‘I bet you’re enjoying this aren’t you, you don’t have to get up in the morning any more.’ Humphrys replies, seductively, ‘Ooooh yesss,’ before resuming his slumbers. Sometimes it’s best to keep things between you and your subconscious.