AMANDA PLATELL: If only Harry had listened to Boris – and stayed here in Britain…

In his new memoir, Boris Johnson reveals that he was asked by both Buckingham ­Palace and Downing Street to try to persuade Prince Harry not to quit Britain.

Boris recalls his ‘manly pep talk’ with the prince, during which he implored Harry to stay, telling him what a shame it would be if he and Meghan left with Archie when they had contributed so much to ‘UK plc’. His arguments fell on deaf ears. The prince flew to Canada the next day.

But what would have happened if Boris had persuaded Harry and Meghan to stay? Surely things would have been so much better.

When Harry met Megs, millions of us rejoiced. Our beloved prince was happy, he’d found ‘The One’ and we loved her. The couple’s popularity soared in the brief time they were working royals.

Had they carried on, what a buttress they would have been. A mixed-race woman married to the Queen’s grandson, both of them working for Crown and country – they could have shored up the monarchy, making it feel safer in our modern age. 

In his memoir, Boris Johnson reveals that he was asked by Buckingham ­Palace and Downing Street to try to persuade Prince Harry, pictured with his wife Meghan in July, not to quit Britain

The ‘Fab Four’ – Harry, Meghan, William and Kate – would have helped the royals in a febrile world where inherited wealth and privilege is increasingly under threat.

And yet Harry chose to turn his back on his family, conducting his awful Oprah interview and writing his despicable memoir Spare.

Today, he strikes a pathetic ­figure, feeding his chickens, ­occasionally supporting charities. The Netflix millions have dried up and Meghan is flogging jams.

What an opportunity missed. With a depleted Royal Family due to King Charles and Catherine’s cancers, the Sussexes could have been so powerful.

Instead, they are figures of ­ridicule. How Harry must regret not taking Boris’s advice.

Half of women discover their first grey hair in their early 30s and it makes them distressed about getting old, a poll finds. 

Elizabeth Taylor had a different take. She reached for the dye and insisted a woman shouldn’t worry about grey hair until she discovered one in her lady parts. 

Wuthering cripes! 

Much disconsolation as white Aussie actor Jacob Elordi is chosen to play Heathcliff in a movie version of Wuthering Heights, when author Emily Bronte described her brooding brute as a ‘dark-skinned gipsy’. 

Surely more worrying is that Margot Robbie, 34, is to play the feisty, fever-stricken Cathy, who’s just 19? Margot is scorched in our collective memory as a vapid, pink Barbie doll. 

Actress Margot Robbie, 34, is to play the feisty, fever-stricken Cathy, 19, in a movie version of Wuthering Heights

The pre-recorded first episode of Strictly 2024 was down nearly a million viewers on 2023. The second – a live show – was watched by just over half the number who tuned in during its heyday of 10.2million. 

And who would have thought the only shining light would be blind comedian Chris McCausland – very funny, can’t dance and the show is all the better for him. 

 Westminster wars 

• I still can’t understand why Keir Starmer needed benefactor Lord Alli’s £18 million penthouse apartment so his son could ‘concentrate on his GCSEs in peace’. Odd that other PMs such as Tony Blair and John Major got their kids through their exams without a favour from a donor.

• Free suits and spectacles for him, free outfits for his wife Lady Vic, all while he was warning common folk of sacrifices ahead and planning to rob pensioners of the ­winter fuel allowance. ­Little wonder that, with a 45 point drop in his approval rating, Starmer is now less popular than Rishi Sunak.

• Keen observers noted the kiss between Starmer and Lady Vic after his conference speech was thin-lipped – ‘like a penguin ­testing a new source of food’, said one. Unfair, surely. It’s all Happy Feet in the Starmer marriage.

What possessed mother-of-five Alice Webb, 33 and beautiful, to have a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift to enhance her already curvy body, ­tragically becoming the first woman to die after undergoing the ­procedure in Britain and leaving her family bereft?

Particularly when her BBL was done in a clinic jointly run by Jordan James Parke, aka the ‘Lip King’, who is not a qualified surgeon and, after four nose jobs and 50 other procedures, looks like this.

A mother died after undergoing BBL surgery in a clinic jointly run by Jordan James Parke, aka the ‘Lip King’ (pictured)

The adorable, ageless Catherine Zeta-Jones, 55, celebrates husband Michael Douglas’s 80th birthday by sending him an intimate picture of her naked from years ago bending seductively over a bathroom basin and wearing nothing but stilettos and a sultry, suggestive smile. 

So intimate, in fact, she shared it with her 5.7million Instagram followers.

Who is Barrowman kidding?

Doctor Who actor John Barrowman quit Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins after just 32 minutes, leaving instructors ‘disgusted’ with his behaviour and declaring him ‘a waste of space’. 

The star, 57, said he had no regrets and it helped him realise who he was. What a wimp – time he time-travelled out of here for good! 

• Disappointing that the former First Lady – who promoted her memoir, Melania, by talking tantalisingly about nude modelling in the 1990s – appeared this week dressed head-to-toe in a dowdy and demure navy outfit. Melania Frump won’t be a vote winner for hubby Donald.   

• Contestants on I’m A Celebrity will be given special dispensation if they are already on weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and allowed to continue their jabs. Which leaves me wondering how they will eat a plateful of kangaroo testicles if their appetite is that of an ant? 

 Vic should blend it like Beckham 

Ahead of her show at Paris Fashion Week, Victoria ­Beckham arrives looking a bit ­bedraggled with deep, dark circles under her eyes, ­making one wonder if her much celebrated £64 ­Concealer Pen – voted best in the world by celebrity make-up artists – isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  

Victoria ­Beckham arrives looking a bit ­bedraggled ahead of her show at Paris Fashion Week

In a teaser for his new TV show Cast Away, where he’s marooned on a deserted island, Phillip Schofield says: ‘I can say whatever I want, it’s my chance to tell my story. I know what I did was unwise, but is it enough to absolutely destroy someone?’ 

Yes, he’s a father of two daughters who betrayed his wife and lied to his bosses about an affair with a younger male colleague. But it’s hardly a hanging offence is it? Let’s give him a break. 

 Justice at Harrods?

Despite the industrial scale of Mohamed Al Fayed’s sexual abuse of his staff, none of his alleged co-conspirators have been charged.

Meanwhile Ann Coxon, the doctor accused of performing intrusive gynaecological tests on women against their wishes, denies she did so.

Now she’s likely to have to answer to the General Medical Council as alleged victims prepare to make a formal complaint and testify against her. Could it result in some justice at last?