Ephraim Hardcastle
CONRAD Black, former Telegraph proprietor and jailbird, writes apropos of Brexit that Theresa May has done her best but lacks the ‘Thatcherite authority’ to face ‘the fullfrontal arrogance of the EU’. Pithily, he calls Brussels ‘an officious cabal of Eurononentities elevated by crawling through the cracks between the great powers to the headship of a well-meant but unaccountable institution that has neither the legitimacy nor the merit to rule Europe’. Would his lordship have scared the horses if he’d been our chief Brexit negotiator?
FORMER Foreign Office permanent secretary Simon Fraser describes David Davis as a terrible Brexit Secretary, tweeting: ‘He could hardly be bothered to go to Brussels and rapidly lost respect there. Preposterous for him now to suggest that EU deliberately delayed negotiations. They spent months waiting for him to engage.’
THE House of Lords’ refusal to uphold Lord Lester’s unprecedented 43-month suspension for alleged sexual harassment has surprised some veterans who recall the LibDem peer being blackballed in 1995 after claiming peers were taking bribes for questions. Says one: ‘He was warned his claim would not be forgiven or forgotten.’
ENGLISH rose actress Imogen Stubbs, 57, pictured, reflects on the ‘Lady’ title she gained after marrying frisky theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn (from whom she split in 2011), telling The Lady magazine it’s ‘overwhelming if you’re married to someone who’s really talented and he becomes a knight and you get a courtesy label which you haven’t earned’. She adds: ‘It’s quite good on a credit card.’
FRUITY thespian Simon Callow, 69, recalls coming out of the closet before Sir Ian McKellen, grandly telling Reader’s Digest: ‘I always say to Ian McKellen I was John the Baptist to his Jesus. I paved the way, because when Ian came out a year or so later, he was a natural leader.’ Luvvies’ opinions of themselves rarely disappoint, do they?
AUSTRALIAN PM Scott Morrison has upset Baywatch firecracker Pamela Anderson by refusing to help her friend, Queensland-born WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange saying: ‘I’ve had plenty of mates who have asked me if they can be my special envoy to sort the issue out with Pamela Anderson.’ ‘Smutty and unnecessary,’ wails Pam, adding: ‘You trivialised and laughed about the suffering of an Australian.’
WHEN Richard Baker, BBC TV’s first newsreader, who has died aged 93, encountered the late Queen Mother at a reception, he was braced to answer questions about his newscasting. Instead the QM only wanted to ask about his appearance on the 1977 Morecambe And Wise Christmas show with high-kicking fellow newsreader Angela Rippon.