Ephraim Hardcastle
BORIS and Carrie won’t need to send a ‘thank you’ missive to Zac Goldsmith for their Costa del Sol holiday. Any gratitude expressed will be to Zac’s mother Lady Annabel, who owns the 600-acre Torre Tramores estate. It was bought for her by her late husband Jimmy Goldsmith in the 1980s. Diana, Princess of Wales, enjoyed two stays there and it was the favourite of billionaire Jimmy’s many homes. Gravely ill with pancreatic cancer, he was flown there from his Burgundy chateau in June 1997 and died in the bed he was born in just days later. And the reason for his final dash? The tycoon managed to avoid crippling French death duties.
FORMER Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell took a sideswipe at fellow Tory MP, racy-novelist-turned-Culture-Secretary Nadine Dorries, at Monday’s launch of his memoirs, Beyond A Fringe. Still hankering to win back the Cabinet seat he lost in 2012 over the ‘Plebgate’ scandal, Mitchell said: ‘I was thinking of writing a steamy bonkbuster as a way of becoming Culture Secretary. Until my wife Sharon said if I did so she would have to rewrite all the sex scenes.’
EX-CHIEF Whip Mitchell’s book is a masterclass on the political dark arts, with Tories plotting against each other. He told the audience at the book launch: ‘A political friend of mine who wrote a biography was approached at his launch party by a life-long enemy who said to him, “I can’t seem to find my name in the index, I’ve even looked under F.” My friend replied, “Have you looked under C old boy?”’ It is to be presumed the letter did not stand for Conservative.
FEVERISHLY promoting her diaries at a London theatre Q&A, Joan Collins, pictured, is asked if there were any British prime ministers she found sexy. ‘I always thought that John Major was quite sexy,’ she replied to audience laughter. At least Joanie didn’t describe Major as a gentleman. Former lover Edwina Currie did so while recalling how, when sharing a bath, John always sat at the tap end.
RECALLING driving across Europe with boyfriend David Linley, now Lord Snowdon, in his Aston Martin DB5, Susannah Constantine gushes: ‘Every man, if they got that, they’d get a little celebratory erection driving it.’ Surely too much information Susannah!
SUCCESSION’S Brian Cox remains disgruntled at the lack of film honours bestowed for his highly-praised title role in 2017’s Churchill, while Gary Oldman won an Oscar the following year for playing Winston in Darkest Hour. ‘I was p ***** off,’ he admits. ‘Particularly when I saw the other movie. I thought it was bloody awful!’ Surely Gary speaks very highly of you, Brian!
SIR Paul McCartney’s new coffee table book The Lyrics has just gone on sale for up to £75. Canny Macca has added his signature to a limited number of the tomes on sale in selected bookshops. The cost? A wallet-bruising £750.