Sam McAlister
(Picture: Dave Benett)MORE bad news for Prince Andrew. If the loss of his titles and patronages ahead of a civil case in the US wasn’t bad enough, the woman behind the interview which set the ball rolling on his current woes is writing a book.
Producer Sam McAlister, right, tells us that ever since the prince’s Newsnight appearance, she has been asked: “How on earth did you convince him to do it?” McAlister helped secure the infamous interview in which Andrew claimed to Emily Maitlis that he was in a Pizza Express in Woking on the night Virginia Giuffre alleges he slept with her.
Later this year McAlister’s Scoops — about her work as a producer — will detail how the interview came about. “I wanted to write it to tell the story of my part in it,” she says.
“I ended up being the person trying to negotiate those scoops,” she tells The Londoner. “I was a barrister and I loved negotiation. I finished pretty close to the top of that class,” she explains, adding that some of her skills may be inherited. “Trying to convince people to do something ... takes all of those kinds of skills that my granddad had in the fishmarket which I’ve carried on in a slightly different way.” And don’t the royals know it.
Pork pie plotters push the envelope
LETTERS to Graham Brady, the Tory 1922 Committee chairman, are all the rage this week as they could lead to a leadership challenge for Boris Johnson. So The Londoner reviewed the Commons members’ yearly bespoke stationery budget for 2020-2021 and learned that seven of the top 11 claimants were Tory MPs from the 2019 intake. They include Chris Loder, who is said to have hosted a meeting of the “pork pie plotters”. What else to do with all that paper?
Cox — too old, too tired, too talented
BRIAN COX isn’t backing down after savaging fellow actors, including Johnny Depp and Michael Caine, in his recent memoir. “I just thought I had to be honest about who people are, and it’s only my opinion,” he says. The Succession star, left, adds that he doesn’t worry about putting himself in a vulnerable position after writing such an honest book. He tells Deadline: “I’m too old, too tired and too talented for any of that shit.” Straight talking.
Dame Joan’s marvellous gaffe
DAME JOAN COLLINS confesses she’s a past master at putting her foot in it. At a recent glitzy dinner full of “celebrities, stars and a smattering of royals”, the actress says she tried to start a conversation with Dame Maureen Lipman, asking her if she had seen The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Dame Maureen had, but said she didn’t love the show. “A Jewish actress should have played Mrs Maisel,” she snapped,” Dame Joan writes in The Spectator, adding: “Suddenly it hit me. She had just given a media interview saying [Dame] Helen Mirren should not be playing Golda Meir because she wasn’t Jewish. I’d done it again.”
Maxine hits cycling peaks
MAXINE PEAKE knows how to tackle the troughs. “Cycling clears my head. It’s fantastic for mental health,” the actor says. “I’m on my bike most days. I’ve always cycled, but in lockdown I started four- or five-hour rides.” Peake, left, who plays Anne Williams in ITV drama Anne about the Hillsborough disaster, tells Stylist she recently completed a mammoth jaunt: “A couple of weeks ago I did this ride called the Cappuccino 180, where you ride 180 kilometres from Salford to Wales, have a coffee — and a flapjack — and then turn around and ride back again.” Hidden talent.
SW1A
IT’S what you didn’t know you needed: a Gavincino. Café Laasgeel, in Somaliland, has created a coffee emblazoned with the former education secretary’s face, right, to thank him for urging the UK to recognise Somaliland. More than a has-bean.
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IT GOES from bad to worse for Boris Johnson. Now Country Life magazine has taken a pop at him, “warmly recommending” readers a scathing article about his failure of leadership by their anonymous columnist Agromenes. If he’s lost even them...
