As he settles into the nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion in California which he and Meghan snapped up for £11 million, Prince Harry will be delighted work goes on apace back home at the Invictus Games Foundation.
I can disclose that the Foundation, established by Harry in 2014, two years before he met Meghan, has just appointed a new trustee with a dazzling commercial record.
But Lord Allen of Kensington is cut from a very different cloth from the other Foundation trustees.
Prince Harry will be delighted work goes on apace back home at the Invictus Games Foundation
They include Ed Lane Fox, Harry’s former Private Secretary — who served with Harry in the Blues and Royals — and Old Etonian City guru Guy Monson.
‘He was recommended to Harry,’ I’m told by an insider.
A former boss of Granada Television and then of ITV, Charles Allen was ennobled in 2013 on the recommendation of Ed Miliband, then Labour leader, who had sought Allen’s advice on improving the party’s commercial fortunes, and he was appointed chairman of the executive board.
Prince Harry with David Birrell of the British Team at the Jaguar Landrover driving Challenge, during the Invictus Games on September 2014 in Gaydon
But Allen’s links to Labour were established long before that.
Although he has amassed a multi-million pound fortune through his career in media and as an adviser to American investment bank Goldman Sachs, Allen has said he has ‘always been Labour’, after growing up ‘in humble beginnings’ in Scotland and securing his first job in the local steel works when he was 17.
Now 63, he lives in Kensington, the swanky part of West London from which he takes his title, with his partner, architect Michael Fisher who, he has remarked, is much richer than he is.
Lord Allen of Kensington said he has ‘always been Labour’, after growing up ‘in humble beginnings’ in Scotland
Allen holds a giddying number of corporate posts — as chairman of an investment bank and director of 15 companies.
Unsurprisingly, his multitudinous commitments prevent him from reflecting on his new role at Invictus.
But, who knows, perhaps it won’t be too long before he’s next in California — and has a chance to pop into ‘The Chateau’, as Meghan and Harry’s home is known, for a chat both about the Games and ‘progressive’ politics?
What a difference a year makes for former Doctor Who star Matt Smith.
Having split from actress Lily James, with whom he spent his last birthday, this week he celebrated his 38th with another special woman — his mother.
Visiting his parents, David and Lynne, in Northampton, he was presented with a children’s cake.
‘Never too old for a caterpillar cake,’ said Lynne, describing Matt as her ‘shining, glowing star’.
Lady A’s eco trainers put boot into plastic
Prince Charles has been fighting single-use plastic for 50 years, and now his fashionable relative, Lady Amelia Windsor, will be hoping her bid to help the cause has legs.
The Duke of Kent’s granddaughter, 25, has designed eco-friendly trainers made using vegan leather, which is derived from fruit waste.
The Edinburgh graduate — who is vegan — collaborated with the shoe brand Yatay.
Lady Amelia Windsor has designed eco-friendly trainers made using vegan leather
The woke black and white shoes were launched this week, and though not cheap at £223, 50 per cent of proceeds go to the No More Plastic campaign, of which Lady Amelia is an advocate.
‘I’m so excited about these non-profit trainers,’ she says. Sounds like she’s got Prince Charles’s Christmas present all wrapped up.
Boris Johnson, said to worry about money after his salary shrank to £150,000 a year as PM, will be envious of the riches lavished on his former Attorney General.
Geoffrey Cox has landed a job as Consultant Global Counsel for top London law firm Withers.
According to the Register of MPs’ Interests, he will receive £468,000 (plus VAT) a year for up to 48 hours a month. Nice work (if you can get it) eh, Boris?
Esme didn’t let her art rule her head
Samantha Morton’s daughter, fellow actress Esme Creed-Miles, appeared to abandon her education to pursue her Hollywood dreams when, halfway through her art foundation course, she landed the title role in the U.S. drama series, Hanna.
But Esme, 20, now says the real reason she dropped out of City & Guilds of London Art School was that she didn’t like her wealthy classmates.
Actress Esme Creed-Miles at the ‘Dark River’ premiere at London Film Festival
‘It was a private foundation,’ says Esme, whose father is Peaky Blinders star Charlie Creed-Miles.
‘The problem with that, which is the same as the school I went to [Bedales], is . . . it’s private education.
It’s quite claustrophobic, affluence influencing affluence. I don’t think I made many friends.’
Strictly Come Dancing presenter Claudia Winkleman, who has been married for 20 years to film producer Kris Thykier — they have three children together — has her eye on a marital successor.
‘Marmite is the love of my life,’ says Claudia, 48. ‘If I ever got married again, it would be to a jar of Marmite.’
Family is all in the jeans
At what age do daughters stop wanting to dress like their mothers?
Princess Diana’s bridesmaid, India Hicks, found her 12-year-old daughter Domino was happy to mirror her look this week — but after sharing a picture online, India, 53, asked in the caption: ‘Matching jeans — utterly ridiculous or sort of OK? What do you think?’
India Hicks posted the photo with her 12-year-old daughter Domino
What the entrepreneur failed to mention was that the £65 jeans were made by Italian label Subdued, which describes itself as ‘a brand for playful, effortless and classy teenage girls’.
India, daughter of Lady Pamela Mountbatten and interior designer David Hicks, admits: ‘Made for her, not for me — sure of that.’
Oscar winner Colin Firth highlights the hazards of filming scenes that involve eating.
‘You’ll see actors move their food around a lot on the plate while they talk,’ he says.
‘The trouble is delivering the lines with a mouthful. How long does it take to chew and swallow? And does that affect the scene?
‘And then there’s continuity: “I was chewing in the long shot, so I must be chewing in the close-up.” You get into all these traps.
And before you know it, you’re bloated and you’ve had more shepherd’s pie than you could ever look at again.’