Ephraim Hardcastle
BBC Radio 4’s Today descended into farce when abrasive presenter Nick Robinson recalling the Queen’s 1992 annus horribilis got the year wrong, telling listeners it was 1997. Worse, he ploughed on regardless, interviewing 1997 PM Tony Blair’s Rottweiler alastair Campbell about his non-existent role advising the royals. at the time in 1992, Campbell was a bagpipe-playing hack on the Daily Mirror. Nick only acknowledged his mistake after the absurd interview. Shouldn’t editor Sarah Sands commission a bespoke clown’s costume for the hapless Robinson?
SPARE a thought for Andrew’s daughter Princess Eugenie, co-founder of the Anti-Slavery Collective. ‘At any one time someone is being trafficked within a mile of where you live,’ she says on her website. ‘We often associate slavery with chains and shackles, but modern slavery is a hidden crime that is often hard to detect.’ How dad’s stubborn friendship with the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein must make her squirm.
VISITORS to Harrods have been serenaded with a piped music version of what sounds suspiciously like the socialist anthem The Red Flag. Have Corbyn and McDonnell perchance been to Santa’s Grotto asking for a Christmas election victory?
BROADCASTER Emma Freud, pictured, partner of Love Actually writer Richard Curtis, melts after being doorstepped by London mayoral candidate Rory Stewart. ‘Opened the door to see this face,’ she coos. ‘Was like the moment in Love Actually where Hugh Grant tries every door.’ Are we to presume Rory has swooning Emma’s vote?
BORIS is within forty-eight hours of avoiding the record as the shortest-serving PM in history. on Friday he will surpass George Canning’s unenviable record of 119 days. If he loses the election he may only move up one place more to 53rd in the PM tenure rankings, behind Bonar Law (211 days).
US feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, calling for Prince Andrew to testify to the FBI, should be familiar to the Royal Family. She was the lawyer representing model Kelly Fisher when she claimed that Dodi Fayed was her fiance and that he had unceremoniously ditched her for Princess Diana. The litigation ceased when both Diana and Dodi died tragically weeks later.
ANDREW’S TV shambles provides a smidgen of comfort for Prince Edward, whose 1987 It’s a Royal knockout event has surely been toppled from the pinnacle of most dire royal TV performances. andrew and his wife Sarah, along with Princess anne, took part in that televisual fiasco. It was vetoed at the time by the Queen’s then private secretary Sir William Heseltine. He was overruled.