Ephraim Hardcastle
ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury Justin Welby has labelled the plan to tackle illegal immigration immoral but fails to offer a constructive alternative, prompting recollection of his call last year for the Government to do more to help ukrainian refugees. Despite grand quarters at Lambeth Palace and his Canterbury old Palace there is yet no sign of Justin giving up a room or two for homeless ukrainians. During the 2016 Syrian refugee emergency, he did house a Syrian family in a ‘spare’ four-bedroom cottage in the grounds of Lambeth but two years later they were asked to move on. An episcopal mouthpiece said that life at Lambeth wasn’t ‘suitable’ for a refugee family, whatever that may mean.
WITH his luggage already in the boot of the car taking him from Westminster to Heathrow, why did Harry make an unscheduled stop at Buckingham Palace? After three hours watching dad being crowned, he needed a comfort break.
DID Watergate hero Carl Bernstein, addressing an investigative journalism summit, spot the handsome blonde octogenarian in the front row at the Royal Institute of British Architects? She was Margaret Jay, 83, daughter of Labour PM Jim Callaghan and ex-wife of Peter Jay. Mr Jay was appointed, in an act of blatant nepotism while his father-in-law was PM, as ambassador to Washington in 1977. Margaret had an affair with Carl, brilliantly chronicled by his wife Nora ephron in heartburn. At Wednesday’s summit, Baroness Jay smiled at her exlover and gave him a coquettish wave. Did Carl offer a furtive wink?
ANY sympathy for Ambassador Jay later evaporated when it was revealed that while Margaret was bonking Bernstein, played in the film Heartburn by Jack Nicholson, pictured, Peter was bonking the family nanny and she had a baby to prove it.
EMILY Sheffield, sister of Samantha Cameron, recalls being humiliated, aged 22, on her first day at The Guardian by a man who told her: ‘emily, of course we all know the only reason you’re here is because the editor wants to have sex with you.’ emily tells Rachel Johnson’s podcast she never told then-editor Alan Rusbridger, adding: ‘he would have been unbelievably upset.’
AS HE lunched with Rupert Murdoch in a private room at Ruth Rogers’ River Cafe, Piers Morgan received a phone message warning: ‘Keep the noise down, we’re upstairs.’ It was from his chum Emily Maitlis, complaining about Morgan’s booming voice jeopardising a podcast she was recording with restaurant owner Rogers.
COMMEMORATING in advance the 60th anniversary of the publication of Anthony Burgess’s A Shorter Finnegan’s Wake, the Times Literary Supplement advises starting the guide to James Joyce’s impenetrable book on ‘moanday’ and keeping the effort up through ‘tearsday’, ‘wailsday’, ‘thumpsday’ and ‘frightday’. Reading 47 pages a day, the TLS calculates Burgess’s book should be completed by ‘shatterday’ evening.