Daily Mail - 23.08.2019

Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019 Page 21

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THE Queen, beleaguered

by son Andrew’s relation-

ship with Epstein and pae-

dophile claims against Lord

Mountbatten, would have welcomed the

morale-boosting presence of Mountbat-

ten’s grandson in this week’s BBC docu-

mentary about the 1979 murder. Timothy

Knatchbull, then 14, survived the IRA

attack, and, arriving at Balmoral at 3am,

was comforted by the Queen ‘sort of

steaming up the corridor at us’. He recalls:

‘It had that sort of feeling of a mother duck

gathering up her lost young, a total look of

care and concern on her face wrapping us

up in a sort of motherliness.’

APROPOS Mountbatten, the new Oldie

magazine describes his last days at his

Hampshire home Broadlands, noting: ‘He

had sets of Barbara Cartland’s books

which he read. He read nothing else much.’

NEW York columnist Cindy Adams claims

that Harry and Meghan will be ‘banished’

to Africa, just like the Duke of Windsor and

his American divorcee wife Wallis Simpson

who were packed off to the Bahamas in

WW2. ‘The message is that Meghan is not

liked in palace circles,’ says Cindy, who

claims to have her ear to the ground

despite being 3,500 miles from Frogmore.

NIGELLA Lawson,

pictured, apologises

after excitedly

plugging the merits of

central London

restaurant Flor,

whose anchovy toast

she’d described as

‘the best thing to eat

in any restaurant in

London’. Within

hours, she tweets:

‘Actually, feel bad about saying that

now... I don’t actually believe in rankings

of that sort, and I don’t mean to

disparage other dishes and other

restaurants I love.’ The Domestic

Goddess’s mansion contains many tables.

BRIGHT Lights, Big City scribe Jay McIner-

ney suffers a sense of humour failure when

millionaire Greek socialite Taki visits him

at the ‘gigantic’ New York country pile he

shares with wife Anne Hearst, one of the

richest women in the US. Taki recalls in The

Spectator: ‘When I asked Jay which of his

books had earned enough to build such a

mansion he didn’t find it at all funny.’

NIGEL Farage, newly ensconced in a two-

bedroom roost in Dolphin Square, is

under siege from the predominantly well-

heeled, elderly, female residents who

monopolise the park benches near the

exit. Says my source: ‘Nigel has found that

if you say hello to them, that’s it, you’ll

never get away. He’s taken to having his

black Range Rover backed up to the main

door of his block where minders bundle

him in and out at top speed.’

JENNIFER Saunders has outed her friend

Dolly Parton as a tattoo aficionado, dis-

closing on Australian TV: ‘She literally just

opened her top. And she wasn’t wearing

a bra. They were the most beautiful angels

and beautiful butterflies and baskets of

flowers in pastel-coloured tattoos.’

But nowhere, under Dolly’s jumbo front-

age, was there any sign of Carl, her reclu-

sive husband of 53 years.

Ephraim

Hardcastle

Email: [email protected]

‘Voila! All improvements compliments of Prue Leith – don’t forget to tip your waiters!’

Postal staff threaten Christmas strikes

MORE than 100,000 Royal Mail workers are
to vote on strikes that could wreak havoc
with deliveries over Christmas.
Staff could stage a mass walkout during
the festive period after accusing the postal
company of breaching ‘the spirit and intent’
of a deal signed last year. The members of
the Communication Workers Union (CWU)
will vote from September 24, with the result

due in early October. The union says Royal

Mail was not honouring a deal that prom-

ised pay rises, a reduction to working hours

and new pension proposals.

Deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger

told a CWU meeting that members should

get ready for the ‘fight of your lives’. Unoffi-

cial walkouts are now running at more than

one a week, including in rural offices not

noted for militancy, said a CWU source.

Royal Mail spokesman Shane O’Riordain

said: ‘We are disappointed that [CWU]

have set out a ballot timetable while dis-

cussions are ongoing. We are committed

to open and constructive engagement

with the CWU.’

By Miles Dilworth

WILL £100bn

HS2 HIT THE

BUFFERS?

personal interest in the idea of
ripping up existing plans and
bringing forward the second
phase from Crewe to Manches-
ter and Birmingham to Leeds.
This would tally with his vow to
‘level the playing field’ between
the North and South.
A Whitehall source stressed
that no decisions on HS2 had
been made but said Mr Johnson
is ‘dedicated to infrastructure,
particularly in the North’.
Last month, in one of his first
policy pledges as Prime Minis-
ter, he set out plans for a new
trans-Pennine rail route between
Manchester and Leeds to boost
prosperity in the North.
An influential report by the
House of Lords economic com-
mittee has already expressed
regret that construction of HS2
did not begin in the North in
the first place.
Arguing that the North had
been ‘short-changed’, it said

the main beneficiaries of over-

crowding relief from High Speed

2 will be London commuters

using the West Coast Main Line

in and out of London Euston.

The committee of economic

heavyweights, which includes

former Labour chancellor

Alistair Darling, raised fears

that spiralling costs could mean

the Government runs out of

money by the time the line

reaches Birmingham. But start-

speeds of up to 225mph, cutting

journey times. The review into

HS2 was promised by the Prime

Minister during his battle for

the Tory leadership and helped

win the support of Tory MPs

fiercely opposed to the rail line.

The Department for Trans-

port (DfT) has said the ‘inde-

pendent and rigorous’ review

will consider ‘whether and how

HS2 should proceed’, with

Transport Secretary Grant

Shapps saying ministers need

‘clear evidence’ before deciding

whether it was a ‘go or no go’.

But Douglas Oakervee, the 78-

year-old former chairman of

HS2 picked by Mr Johnson to

head the review, told The Times:

‘It would be a sad day if we

scrapped it. It’s about how we

deliver it and what’s delivered.’

The DfT declined to comment

last night.

ing the work in North would

involve enormous upheaval and

is likely to put the project mas-

sively behind schedule.

Construction work at Euston

station in London to prepare for

HS2 is well under way, with the

first phase up to Birmingham

set to be completed by 2026.

The second phase linking up

to northern towns and cities

including Crewe, Manchester,

Sheffield and Leeds is not

scheduled for completion until

2033 and has not even received

parliamentary approval.

With £6.6billion already spent

without any track being laid,

ministers appear to have aban-

doned hope that HS2 will be

able to stick to its £56billion

budget. Mr Johnson recently

admitted that the final cost will

‘probably be north of £100bil-

lion’. HS2 trains would run at

By James Salmon

Transport Editor

BORIS Johnson has expressed

personal interest in having the

northern phase of HS2 built

first, it was claimed last night.
A review into the controversial
high-speed rail link is looking at
whether it should be scrapped or
scaled back to cut costs.
Days before the review was launched
on Wednesday, Dominic Cummings,
the Prime Minister’s most senior
adviser, is understood to have
described HS2 as a ‘disaster zone’.
Radical options being considered for
Britain’s biggest ever infrastructure
project include running slower, less
regular trains and only building the
first phase of the line between London
and Birmingham.
But according to a report in The
Times, Mr Johnson has already shown

Is Boris set to

salvage HS2 by

building route

in North f irst?

From yesterday’s Mail