Ephraim Hardcastle
SUGGESTIONS for a prince philip statue in Trafalgar Square will get short shrift. Remarkably self-effacing philip has made it clear he wishes for no great memorial after his death, even downgrading elaborate plans for his funeral, insisting on a low-key event at Windsor with no ceremonial or lying in state.
THERE is already a Philip statue, alongside the Queen, at Canterbury Cathedral. At its 2014 unveiling Philip mused that the Queen looked more like Barbara Windsor and he resembled Boris Karloff, muttering: ‘I’m sure the pigeons will like it.’
pRiNCe Andrew’s spat with the Queen’s Master of the household, Tony Johnstone-Burt, hinged on his refusal to allow the prince use of a Buckingham palace room for his pitch@palace event. it was a breach of the convention confining events to ceremonial, state and charitable functions. The Queen muddied the waters last year, permitting favourite son Andy to hold the pitch grand finale in Buck house rather than St James’s palace.
FIFTY years after winning Eurovision with the song Boom Banga-Boom, Lulu, pictured, has cleared her throat to sing it again, saying: ‘I began to look down my nose at it. I wouldn’t sing that song for more than 30 years. Now I’m including it on my tour.’
ReCAlliNG then education secretary Michael Gove’s disastrous 2010 tampering with history teaching in schools, historian Richard J evans tells the london Review of Books that Gove sent his special adviser to see him: ‘A slim, balding, casually-dressed youngish man flopped into an armchair. “Well,” he said. “We’ve f ***** up, haven’t we?” it was Dominic Cummings.’
NONENTITY Lib Dem Galen Milne says Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg should be ‘hung, drawn and quartered, with each quarter being sent to the four corners of the UK to be burned at the stake’. Moggy replies sweetly: ‘Mr Milne should get his facts straight. As Lord President of the Council, I am entitled to the privilege of being beheaded.’
The Guardian’s withdrawal of its Cameron ‘privileged pain’ editorial comes five years after columnist ‘Jack’ Monroe sneered that the former pM ‘used stories about his dead son as misty-eyed rhetoric’. No one does nasty quite like the caring left.
BEFORE quitting his brother’s Government, Jo Johnson enjoyed a bracing breast stroke in Parliament Hill’s unheated lido with swimming chum Alastair Campbell. Lots to talk about as they splashed around?
FORMeR labour Mp luciana Berger, now a lib Dem, beamed with pride as former squeeze Chuka Umunna made his debut conference speech yesterday. They split in 2011 after a holiday in ibiza. Could pillow talk have ever envisaged both jumping ship to the lib Dems?