HardcastleEphraim

THE Prime Minister boasts in the Commons about his stewardship of the NHS: ‘Our performance is still well better than it is in Wales and in Scotland, or indeed Northern Ireland.’ Well better? Broadcaster Andrew Neil comments sarcastically about Dave’s ungrammatical, teenager-mimicking language: ‘It must be an Old Etonian catchphrase.’ THE less-than-sweet Labour peer Lord Sugar, who once owned Tottenham Hotspur, criticises his former star player, Sol Campbell, who is talking about becoming a Tory candidate. Recalling Campbell’s controversial departure from Spurs to their arch-rivals, Arsenal, in 2001, Sugar tweets: ‘Sol Campbell in talks about signing up with the Tories for the 2020 election...(his) loyalty can’t be trusted. Flipped from Spurs to Arsenal.’ Is Sugar’s loyalty to Labour trusted? He sounds like a Tory when talking about immigration. CONGRATULATIONS to Radio 4’s newish Today presenter Mishal Husain, 41, pictured, for her scoop from the school in Peshawar where the Taliban murdered 132 pupils and nine teachers. (Typically the BBC refers to the killers as ‘militants’.) Of Pakistani origin herself, Ms Husain’s vivid, moving eye-witness account of the massacre’s aftermath was great radio. A pity they had to follow her harrowing report with a flippant discussion about methane gas on Mars, with presenter Sarah Montague asking a US scientist: ‘When we talk about methane levels on earth we usually mean flatulence. Is that what’s happening on Mars?’ From pathos to bathos in two seconds. SHADOW Chancellor Ed Balls announces: ‘Thanks for all good wishes on my Grade 4 piano exam – just heard I passed…. On to Grade 5.’ Ed must now hope that his political skills are also seen to improve in 2015. Otherwise, might his musical talents be solicited as a bordello pianist? SURPRISINGLY, President Francois Hollande’s poll ratings are up by 5 per cent, despite ever-rising unemployment and deflation fears. Why so? Experts blame ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent ‘ranting’, anti-Hollande speeches and the ‘swivel-eyed’, acidic outpourings of the president’s bitter ex-mistress, Valerie Trierweiler. ‘People are now feeling sorry for Francois,’ chortles my source. THE historic black civil rights march in Alabama 50 years ago is the subject of a much-talked-about new film, Selma. Written by English screenwriter Paul Webb, i ts British stars are David Oyelowo (as Rev Martin Luther King), Tom Wilkinson (as President Lyndon Johnson) and Tim Roth (as Alabama’s segregationist governor, George Wallace). Opening in the US on Christmas Day and here on January 9, the New Yorker enthuses about Selma, which was financed by Pathe UK. They point out: ‘Our unique American heritage exists onscreen courtesy of talented British actors.’