Ephraim Hardcastle
OUR former ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, says: ‘I’m stunned that [Sir John] Major should have made a furiously embittered attack on the Government in the... week when Johnson, Truss and Wallace are busting a gut to stop a war. Even Starmer made common cause with Boris. Indefensible for a former PM to undermine our diplomacy.’ Is there bad blood here? Sir Christopher used to be Mr Major’s press secretary and spokesman.
NOTING the unflattering comparisons being made between Carrie Johnson and Marie Antoinette, the PM’s ex-mistress Petronella Wyatt says: ‘When it comes to pernicious spousal influence, she strongly resembles Empress Alexandra, who attempted to run Russia through her husband, Tsar Nicholas. That experiment ended in a hail of bullets in Ekaterinburg.’ Ms Wyatt adds sweetly: ‘I think I love Carrie. She’s the gift that keeps on giving. Only not to Boris.’
PARIS gossips say president Emmanuel Macron wants to poach European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde, 66, pictured, and make her prime minister if he wins the election in May. The Germans are said to be discontented with her as ECB supremo. Their top tabloid Bild calls her ‘Madame Inflation’ and sneers about her sexy Chanel outfits. Mouton habille comme agneau?
RADIO Times announces that – ahead of his new series on Radio 4 – ‘Julian Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury’ discusses suffering from depression, speaking in tongues and how he regrets closing churches during the pandemic. Do they mean ‘Justin’ Welby? Or is it a new series by that sparkling wit Julian Clary?
FOXY Tory diarist Sasha Swire revealed she and ex-minister spouse Sir Hugo Swire were spending Valentine’s night apart, announcing: ‘My husband is having dinner... with Sir Nicholas Soames.’ No doubt there was suitably romantic lighting for the Old Etonian duo.
DEPUTY head of the RAF, Air Marshal Andrew Turner, 54, is suspended after neighbours call police complaining that he was naked in his garden. Might he have been inspired by Esther Rantzen, who confided that ‘I dived out of bed and ran around the garden stark naked’ to celebrate her 80th birthday? Adding: ‘The early morning breeze wafts about bits of you that are normally enclosed.’
PROMOTING his new memoir on Radio 2, Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb describes his late mother, Gloria, saying: ‘She was the most staggering snob [who] thought the Queen was common because she had opened Buckingham Palace to the TV cameras.’ Webb spoke fondly enough, but it was hardly a flattering memory to share of the single mother who brought him up.