Hardcastle Ephraim
TOM Bower’s new book says Tony Blair deceived his colleagues, the military and the nation. Did he also mislead the Queen during their weekly audiences? A court source says: ‘If he did, perhaps he feels he has made amends by the fact that he has not received a Garter knighthood from HM, an honour accepted happily by his Tory predecessor, John Major.’
FORMER Tory MP and Thatcher aide Matthew Parris says the Leave side in the EU debate remind him of those who supported Ian Smith’s attempts to remain in power in what was then Rhodesia. He writes in The Spectator: ‘They remind me of Ian Smith. And look how that ended.’ But how did it end? Rhodesia – then a successful country – became Zimbabwe, a corrupt, failing state run for 36 years by dictator Robert Mugabe, who has celebrated his 92nd birthday at an extravagant party held during the most recent local famine.
OSCARS host Chris Rock, pictured, made fun of black film star Will Smith and his TV star wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who boycotted the ceremony because no blacks were nominated. He said blacks had been discriminated against at the Oscars for more than 70 years but they had better things to protest about in the past – such as being lynched and raped. Rock, 51, is unique – a black man who makes blacks laugh over discrimination against them by whites. See his (YouTube) video, How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police.
COURTIERS chuckled over the first part of Channel 5’s Inside Buckingham Palace, especially royal historian Chris Wilson’s claim that Prince Philip forced the Queen Mother to move out by turning down the heating. My source says: ‘There was no need. Even today the central heating systems are ramshackle and ineffective. Private rooms still have electric fires to supplement the creaking system.’
PSEUDO celebrity Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, 52, is in cinemas next month – the pinnacle, surely, of a ‘winning by losing’ publicity career which began when he fell off the ski jump at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Former GB Olympics trainer David Miller says Eddie belongs among the accidentprone show-offs in Channel 4’s absurd reality show The Jump.
THE Royal Collection Trust declines to take part in a project, Art UK, to digitise all public art collections. Evidently they prefer us to pay to view the 7,000 or so paintings rather than look at them online. Trust income fell 19 per cent last year but they’ve high hopes for their Queen’s 90th birthday china, with plates costing a trifling £89 and mugs a cheap-as-chips £25.
TRUMP-haired Tory MP (and confirmed bachelor) Michael Fabricant, tweets: ‘A lady has just said to me, “We are all so proud you’ve come out!” “What?” I asked. “Of Europe,” she answered.’ Brexit fan Fabricant adds mischievously: ‘Phew!’ Surely Fabricant, 65, is cruising for a bruising from Tory whips over his near-the-knuckle Tweets?