Ephraim Hardcastle
WAS Cabinet Secretary Simon Case distinctly underwhelmed by the public administration committee queries about Boris’s Downing Street flat overspend? As Prince William’s private secretary, Case oversaw the £4.5million refurbishment of Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace – with William and Kate contributing to extras, including a second kitchen. Their country home, Anmer Hall, also needed a £1.5million upgrade funded by the Queen. Boris’s £58,000 must seem like loose change to Case.
ANTI-royalist Bishop of Willesden Peter Broadbent complains that the Church of England’s General Synod has made it more difficult to select unconventional candidates like him for bishoprics. He has never been promoted to diocesan bishop despite all 40 dioceses changing bishops, most more than once, during his 20 years at Willesden. This is surely wise. Promotion would require ‘Call me Pete’, as he’s dubbed, kneeling before the Queen, holding her hands and paying homage. What if HM asked him why he called her son Charles ‘Big Ears’ and predicted that William and Kate’s marriage would fail within seven years?
TO CELEBRATE the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, interior designer and confirmed bachelor Nicky Haslam, pictured, seems to be contemplating the ultimate sacrifices of marriage and fatherhood. Recalling his mother being christened Diamond on Queen Victoria’s jubilee, he tells The Spectator: ‘If I decide to tie the knot, with careful planning, I could have a tot to call Platinum. If it’s a chap he could be called Jubilee, as many boys were in 1897.’ Is Nicky having a giraffe?
RAILING against Downing Street’s profusion of special advisers, Margaret Thatcher’s Falkland’s Defence Secretary Sir John Nott expresses faith in his civil servants, adding: ‘I was the politician: I did not need a special adviser.’ Retorts former special adviser Julian Glover: ‘That may be why he proposed removing HMS Endurance from the Antarctic, thereby encouraging Argentina to invade the Falklands. It may also explain his unfortunate decision to walk out of a live interview with Sir Robin Day.’ Seconds out! Round two!
WRITER DJ Taylor rages against the pulping of Blake Bailey’s biography of Philip Roth by US publisher WW Norton over unproven allegations of ‘inappropriate’ sexual behaviour. Wondering if the firm would expunge sexual abusers Dickens and Jack London, he cites his forthcoming biography of Orwell, who was guilty of a teenage sexual assault, adding: ‘On Norton’s reasoning, this surely would be the end of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.’
IN THE wake of Emily Maitlis’s Newsnight defenestration, Prince Andrew fell on his sword and resigned as Chancellor of Huddersfield University. Not so ex-wife Sarah, who was also honoured. She remains Huddersfield’s Professor of Philanthrepreneurship.