EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Can Beatrice & Eugenie save Andrew's royal status

2022-10-06

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Can Beatrice and Eugenie save Andrew’s royal status?

Will Queen Margrethe of Denmark’s drastic slimming down of her royal family – removing titles from four of her grandchildren – inspire King Charles to grasp the nettle and scrap Andrew’s HRH status?

He is in a bind. If he formally takes away his brother’s HRH, he would have to amend the letters patent to either exempt Beatrice and Eugenie or separately create them HRHs.

Charles has been impressed by how they have built careers ‘wearing their royalty lightly’ and wouldn’t want to upset them. It’s possible that the virtues of the daughters could cover the sins of the father.

Liz Truss almost didn’t bag the historic photograph of the Queen anointing her as PM at Balmoral. In keeping with her mantra ‘I must be seen to be believed’, HM approved the taking of pictures with incoming PMs.

However, a mole reveals that with the monarch looking frail and with a bruised hand, she was advised it might be wise to avoid being pictured so as not to prompt further speculation about her health.

The Queen was having none of it and insisted that the photo op went ahead as planned. No one at the time knew that she would pass to her heavenly throne just 48 hours later.

When the Queen was introduced to transgender writer Jan Morris she had no idea who she was. Morris, who died in 2020 aged 94, had to explain that as James Morris he had transmitted the news that Edmund Hillary had conquered Everest in time for her coronation. Asked why she didn’t tell the sovereign about her gender reassignment, she replied: ‘How could I explain to her? Life is too short.’

Morris, who died in 2020 aged 94, had to explain that as James Morris he had transmitted the news that Edmund Hillary had conquered Everest in time for her coronation

Broadcaster and Paisley Grammar School boy Andrew Neil tweets: ‘Sky’s Kay Burley [pictured] questions if Truss was right to claim to be first PM to have gone to a comprehensive. Sky’s Sam Coates says he thinks Gordon Brown went to one. Wrong. Brown went to Kirkcaldy High, then a highly selective state school equivalent to an English grammar.’

Reminded that Gordon complained about it being ‘highly selective in later life’, Neil cuttingly adds: ‘Indeed. After it had fast-tracked him to Edinburgh University.’

Government minister Nadhim Zahawi, mocking feminist Labour’s lack of female leaders, says the party is ‘all talk but all we see is trousers’. Labour comedian Eddie Izzard, who has a fine collection of frocks, will be mortally offended.

Recalling Shirley Bassey’s rendition of Goldfinger for the 1964 film, Bond boss Barbara Broccoli tells Radio 4: ‘They kept asking her to hold the note… she kept trying to hold it long enough for the credits to roll,’ adding: ‘Until eventually she took her bustier off, which was holding her back… and she let it go!’

When ITV’s Holly Willoughby was in trouble for allegedly queue barging at the Queen’s lying in state, a sympathetic journalist advised her ‘don’t do a mea culpa’.

Holly appeared to agree that this was a sound tactic. She then asked: ‘What’s a mea culpa?’

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