Hardcastle Ephraim
LORD snowdon, to ease his conscience over his adultery, engineered an affair between his wife Princess Margaret and his friend Anthony Barton, the godfather of their daughter sarah Chatto. This astonishing claim is made in Channel 5’s forthcoming documentary snowdon and Margaret: A scandalous Affair, with historian Professor Anna Whitelock saying: ‘It seems with almost a kind of vindictive glee he pushed the two of them together, which of course made Princess Margaret’s sense of being abandoned by her husband even worse!’ The former brother-in-law of the Queen, who died in 2017, is described as ‘philandering for England’. ‘He would flirt with the letterbox,’ says the documentary. ‘He would jump on anything.’
DIEHARD Liverpool devotee Len McCluskey isn’t such a fan after all, judging by the timing of last night’s launch of his book Always Red. The literary shindig, in a Westminster pub, clashed with Liverpool’s Champions League match with AC Milan at Anfield. The televised game was scheduled to be almost over when Len’s beano wound up at 9.30pm. Might his boast of being a proud Kopite prompt an amendment to the book’s title to (Nearly) Always Red?
US rap star Nicki Minaj clashes with Piers Morgan after her claim that the vaccine can cause impotence. ‘sir, I’ve never met you,’ she dismissively tweets. Piers fires back: ‘Madam, we met on America’s Got Talent when you appeared as a guest act – but you refused to say hello to my three young sons because you were “too busy”.’
WAS Prince Harry flirting with Jill Biden, pictured, during their Zoom call? Eight years after they first met in Colorado at the Warrior Games, the US equivalent to his Invictus enterprise, Harry renewed their acquaintance during a discussion about their military charities. ‘It’s an absolute pleasure and joy to see you again after so many years,’ he gushed. ‘It has been fantastic to see you in action... giving everything you’ve got to so many.’ Look out Meghan and Sleepy Joe!
IN the midst of the cash for honours investigation, Prince Charles receives a welcome reminder of his positive environmental work after the death of international hotel chain manager Lawrence Bloom. Londoner Bloom, a friend of Charles, had been unable to persuade his bosses to revolutionise hotel guests’ towel provision, offering the option of having a clean towel every day or keeping the one they’d used. Charles summoned the chiefs of the world’s leading five-star chains to Highgrove, knocked heads together and got them to introduce the ‘eco’ towel. ‘It transformed the hotel industry,’ said Bloom, who has died of Covid-19 aged 78.
BARONESS Jones of Moulsecoomb, a member of the Green Party, praises former pop warbler Feargal Sharkey for his environmental campaigning on making chalk streams cleaner for fly fishing, but adds that she has little idea of his musical career. ‘He was the lead singer in a punk band, the Undertones – I am afraid I have never heard of it,’ she told the Lords. Odds on Feargal has never heard of la Jones.