EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Tony Blair's long wait for honour

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Tony Blair’s long wait for honour

Tony Blair had to wait until after the death of Prince Philip to receive the Order of the Garter, according to Gyles Brandreth

Newly invested Knight of the Garter Tony Blair had to wait until after the death of Prince Philip to receive the honour from the Queen, according to Philip’s friend and biographer Gyles Brandreth. While predecessors Margaret Thatcher and John Major were honoured six and seven years respectively after leaving Downing Street, Blair has had to wait 15 years. Philip famously had little time for the Labour PM and his policies. Commenting on yesterday’s low-key Windsor ceremony, Brandreth observes: ‘It could be that the Queen waited until the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh, who certainly occasionally had things to say about Blairism!’ And oh to be a fly on the wall when Tony’s garter was handed over with the words: ‘Tie about thy leg… and having undertaken a just war, into which thou shalt be engaged, thou mayest stand firm.’ Blair’s Iraq war, according to the Chilcot Report, was anything but just.

As we await the inevitable knighting of Platinum Jubilee mastermind Nicholas Coleridge, commemorative bling soars in price, with medals issued to Armed Forces personnel and emergency services workers changing hands online for upwards of £50. Those invited to the thanksgiving at St Paul’s are selling the order of service booklets for at least £68. Menus from the Guildhall reception that followed are a similar price. Copies of the programme for Trooping the Colour start at £41. Can someone reach into their wallet to buy a souvenir for Jubilee absentee Prince Andrew

How goes the TV career of Louise Minchin? She is about to be seen with Paddy McGuinness in a daft game show, answering general knowledge questions and attempting to catch large plastic balls for charity. Louise quit BBC Breakfast last September saying she wanted a change. Starring in Celebrity Catchpoint, which boasts the biggest balls on telly, certainly fulfils that ambition!

Three decades after Joely Richardson’s Lady Chatterley, pictured, romped with Sean Bean’s Mellors, she is returning to the DH Lawrence classic. But this time she is playing the buttonedup housekeeper Mrs Bolton in a Netflix version. She tells Radio Times: ‘It would be insane to think I ought to be playing Lady Chatterley again. It was lovely being in it and seeing the drama from a different point of view.’ Vertical rather than horizontal, Joely?

Conscious of the danger of being typecast playing detectives, Bloodlands star James Nesbitt says: ‘There’s a comedian in Northern Ireland who’s developed a thing that every detective show anywhere in the world, in whatever language, should just be called Nesbitt. And I just come in and solve a crime…’ He adds ruefully: ‘Maybe I shouldn’t play a policeman for a while!’

Stung by Elvis Costello’s mocking of his croaky rendition of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline at the Platinum Jubilee, Sir Rod Stewart tells him that his voice was rough due to Covid, adding: ‘By the way, where’s your hair gone mate?

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