Ephraim Hardcastle
EMILY Maitlis has made a seasonal record of Simon and Garfunkel’s Silent Night, reading current news headlines over a choral rendition on subjects including Trump’s impeachment, Greta Thunberg’s agitation and Boris’s Brexit excitement. No mention of defenestrating Prince Andrew. Couldn’t she find anything to rhyme with Epstein?
TV cameras caught Boris Johnson smirking as the Queen announced his repeal of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act at yesterday’s State Opening. BoJo regards it as the worst piece of legislation by his predecessor, David Cameron. No smirking from the Queen or Prince Charles, though. A repeal would put the monarchy back in charge of calling elections. ‘They have been more than happy to dodge that bullet of late,’ says a Lords insider.
SNEAKING out of an upstairs window to meet a girlfriend aged 16, Melvyn Bragg tells Cotswold Life he was apprehended by his mother. ‘She looked at me quite straightforwardly and said: “Melvyn – you’re pleasant-looking, and you’ll never be anything else.” Then she went, and I was out of the window.’
BBC Radio 4 Today editor Sarah Sands, pictured, bids farewell to presenter John Humphrys, recalling a programme producer asking to use the lavatory at John’s London home before setting off on the six-hour journey to his Welsh farmhouse. ‘Absolutely not. Absolutely not,’ declared Humphrys. ‘You need to learn bladder discipline.’
RARELY heard in the Lords, Jeffrey Archer turns up to take the oath but needs tuition after being told he has to shake hands with the Deputy Speaker on the Woolsack. Microphones picked up Archer’s whispered question to the clerk – ‘what’s his name?’ The clerk tells him. Archer then greets Lord Lexden like a long-lost friend.
LADY Glenconner’s best-selling memoir has led to a lucrative deal for two novels from Princess Margaret’s former Lady In Waiting. But how can Lady Anne’s fiction be more incredible than spending her honeymoon with Colin Tennant in a Paris brothel and a cock fight in Cuba?
EVERGREEN Joan Collins seeks advice from The Spectator’s agony aunt Mary Killen on dealing with fans seeking selfies as she washes her hands or powders her nose in the ladies lavatory, writing: ‘What is the correct way to handle this awkward situation? My gut feeling is to say, “f*** off, you’re invading my space” – but perhaps this would offend?’
CLEARING her throat to announce her bid to replace Jezza as Labour leader, it appears Yvette Cooper had a juvenile Boris, King of the World moment when attending primary school in Alton. Recalls a classmate: ‘She declared: “One day I am going to be Prime Minister”.’ She was aged eight at the time.