The power of an iron fist in a velvet glove was shown to perfection by Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis in her interview with Prince Andrew.
After months of tortuous negotiations, he agreed to meet Maitlis in his mother’s formal quarters in Buckingham Palace. In recent memory, there has not been such a spectacular fall from such a high place as the Prince suffered in the televised conversation that ended his formal role as a member of the Royal Family.
After the broadcast, only 6 per cent of viewers believed his claims that he had no recollection of meeting the then 17-year-old Virginia Roberts, who claims she was trafficked to have sex with him by Jeffrey Epstein.
The power of an iron fist in a velvet glove was shown to perfection by Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis in her interview with Prince Andrew
Maitlis was magnificent. Calm, cool, constrictor-like in her questioning. Had she studied The Jungle Book’s python Kaa to perfect the effortless manner in which she beguiled and trapped the Duke? Poor old Andy never stood a chance.
I wonder how it would have turned out if her Newsnight predecessor, brutal inquisitor Jeremy Paxman, had taken the chair. Man-spreading and ego-parading, too confrontational by half, he could never have prised out of the Duke what Maitlis did.
More from Amanda Platell for The Daily Mail…
Of her interview, she wrote: ‘He did not seem particularly nervous. Not like a man who’s about to decide his fate in an on-camera interview.’
Perhaps her very weird half-buttoned-up military jacket was a deliberate distraction. It certainly distracted viewers. So, too, did the hideous clumpy shoes she wore.
Was she deliberately trying to look awkward and ill-dressed, lulling Andrew into a false sense of security, playing on his sense of entitlement and superiority?
While I’m instinctively opposed to the new fad for chucking out old boys for new women on TV, Maitlis proved herself to be a standard bearer.
Most of the important televised occasions, including the political debates, are now chaired by women.
ITV’s Julie Etchingham managed effortlessly to control the egos of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn in the first head-to-head debate, while allowing them to reveal themselves.
An often flustered, interrupting Boris — not as funny and quick on his feet as we expected; a tired Jeremy failing nine times to articulate his stand on Brexit.
Last night Fiona Bruce was chairing the Question Time debate of the four major party leaders.
What we are witnessing is the march of the women presenters, and so far so good. In this election they have proved the female of the species is deadlier than the male.
Farrah Fawcett, pictured, was iconic in her red Charlie’s Angels swimsuit
A heavenly angel
Without a bikini in sight, the new Charlie’s Angels movie has belly flopped, costing $48 million to make but taking $8.6 million in its U.S. launch weekend.
Bringing the 1970s hit TV series into the 21st century meant they took the decolletage out of detective work and replaced it with ball-breaking females in trousers.
The original had three women stars — a feat for feminism then — and their silver bullet was Farrah Fawcett in that red swimsuit.
These modern-day angels are the devil’s work.
Days after Gary Lineker’s second ex-wife Danielle Bux announced she’d married the father of their child in the summer, she and the MOTD presenter are snapped walking with her pooch in LA.
And they speak three times a day, every day, despite separating in 2016.
If I were her new hubby Nate Greenwald, I’d be worried I was in danger of being substituted.
As a fervent monarchist, I breathed a sigh of relief — as many did — when the Queen relieved her second son of his royal duties.
No single member of The Firm has so spectacularly brought them into such disrepute.
One does not have to be a signed-up member of #MeToo to realise that a man who continued to consort with a convicted paedophile is not fit for office, any office — now or ever.
Westminster wars…
Nixon lost the first ever U.S. presidential TV debate with JFK because he sweated so profusely
Did Jeremy Corbyn have his Richard Nixon moment with his skew-whiff, smeared spectacles in the debate with Boris Johnson?
Nixon lost the first ever U.S. presidential TV debate with JFK because he sweated so profusely.
How can we trust our future to a man whose glasses are as crooked as his promises?
Lamentable Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson’s puerile student politics and Stop-Brexit message have sent her party’s poll ratings plummeting from 26 to 14 per cent — and still falling.
And those frocks! They may hug her hour-glass figure, but the only resemblance to Jessica Rabbit is her toothy smile.
American IT tutor Jennifer Arcuri re-reappeared on UK TV to accuse Boris Johnson of not returning her calls and ghosting her.
Was she really here to seek solace from Boris, or auditioning for a remake of Fatal Attraction?
Shameful that the Corbynistas booed the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg as she rose to ask a question. Hatred for the Beeb, or just plain misogyny?
Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey berates her more successful ex-husband Adrian Chiles, whom she divorced a decade ago, for not standing up for her in the BBC pay parity row.
Garvey admits she didn’t have the courage to pursue an equal pay claim herself and opted instead ‘to take a pay rise’.
I can’t imagine her indomitable Woman’s Hour co-presenter Jenni Murray begging for the boys to come to her aid.
Coleen Rooney spent a small fortune on a professional studio shoot dressing her four little lads up in vintage red pyjamas for their family Christmas card.
Sad that neither mum nor dad appear in the picture — or was that fat bloke dressed as Santa really Wayne in disguise?
After Strictly’s first same-sex dance where Graziano Di Prima elegantly partnered Johannes Radebe, 189 viewers complained.
Frankly, it’s always made me rather sad that of all the loving gay couples I know, I’ve hardly ever seen them dance together — unless it was in a crowd to Abba.
Hopefully Strictly will help break down those barriers.
With so few complaining out of an audience of 7.7 million, there’s only one message: keep dancing!
Killer not ‘confused’ – simply pure evil
The grandparents of the fantasist who murdered British backpacker Grace Millane on a Tinder date in New Zealand, say he is a ‘very confused lad’ who went off the rails when his parents divorced, as ‘that’s what happens with broken-up marriages’.
Sorry, but for the millions of kids who survive divorce, it’s not ‘what happens’. Divorce does not turn a 27-year-old into a man who beguiles an innocent girl with his lies, strangles her during sex, stuffs her body into a suitcase and buries her in a shallow grave.
And more monstrously, a man who then claims in court that Grace wanted rough sex and was ‘asking for it’. Evil is evil and your grandson is a monster.
The courts have made that plain.
Can I be the only devotee of The Crown to be utterly unconvinced by Olivia Colman as the Queen? An actress who basks in real-life vulgarity, who is forever using the F-word word, playing our graceful, genteel Elizabeth? Colman’s Queen is irritating, brittle and contrived. Alas, more ham than ma’am.
Is it time to clear the jungle?
Caitlyn Jenner, pictured
So far Caitlyn Jenner, born William Bruce Jenner, is the worthy star of I’m A Celebrity — the only female confident enough to appear in a bikini in the bush shower.
Yet in years to come, how will we look back on an entertainment show in which celebrities were subjected to facing their worst fears in a fake jungle?
And where millions of critters were sent to their death, or marsupials’ testicles were eaten as sport?
There’s something uncomfortably sadistic about the show now. It can’t be long before Ant and Dec’s jungle becomes as outdated and un-PC as Alf Garnett’s Till Death Us Do Part.