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[TonyGosling]

Book claims Aitken is of royal blood

Last updated at 9:32 AM on 30th December 2008

His life has had more twists and turns than a penny dreadful: tipped as a future prime minister - he even dated the daughter of one - only for his political career to end in disgrace with a jail sentence for perjury.

But even Jonathan Aitken, whose ability to reinvent himself is matched only by his languid confidence, would surely draw the line at the latest extraordinary claim about him - that he is the illegitimate son of the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.


Scandal: A new book claims Jonathan Aitken, left, is the illegitimate son of the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, right

The intriguing allegation comes in a new book about the German-born playboy Prince and his wife, Holland's Queen Juliana, in which he suggests the future Tory Cabinet minister was the product of a wartime affair between Bernhard and Aitken's mother, Penelope.

That the two were lovers is not in doubt. The former Penelope Maffey was a striking beauty who captured several hearts. The society artist Simon Elwes became her first great love while painting her portrait, before the Prince came into her life and the two began a romance.

Penelope later married Lord Beaverbrook's nephew, William (Bill) Aitken, a Canadian journalist, who served as an RAF fighter pilot during World War II and became a Tory MP.

If Dutch historian Cees Fasseur, whose book covers 20 years of Bernhard's life from 1936, is correct, 66-year-old Aitken is a half-brother to Holland's current monarch, Queen Beatrix, 70.

'The Dutch are very excited about the suggestion that Jonathan may be part of their royal family,' I am told by a family source.

'The Press there have been frantically trying to get in touch with Jonathan to interview him. Understandably he's very reluctant to get involved because he and his family are, as it happens, very close friends with the Dutch royals and really he doesn't want to rock the boat.'

Aitken, who famously dumped Carol Thatcher and is the possessor of an acutely analytical mind, will not need reminding of the symmetry of these claims.

Aitken was disgraced and had an illegitimate child, Bernhard was also disgraced - over the Lockheed bribes scandal - and admitted fathering several illegitimate children. Aitken was last night unavailable for comment.

Supermodel Elle Macpherson appears to have ditched plans to sell her £8m Notting Hill home and move back to her native Australia.

For I can reveal that the ageless catwalk queen has been touring West London's leading private schools to find a suitable educational establishment for her sons Flynn, ten, and Aurelius Cy, five.

Elle - who had the boys while living with their father, hedge-fund fat cat Arpad 'Arki' Busson, now engaged to actress Uma Thurman - has been living in London for nearly ten years. But earlier this year it was reported that she had tired of London and hankered after a simpler life.

Now she appears to be staying put, judging by a recent visit to a top private school in the area, and its associated prep school.

I'm told: 'She was getting the grand tour. Not much notice was taken of her at the prep school, but by the time she was in the main building hordes of older teenagers were practically following her every step. Everyone hopes her boys come and she'll be a regular attraction.'

First class honours for Quant

Forty years after bowler-hatted gents beat on her shop window with rolled umbrellas in outrage because of the shortness of the new skirt she had designed, iconic fashionista Mary Quant is to have the last laugh. Her muchimitated miniskirt, I learn, is being immortalised on a new postage stamp.

While Mary prepares to celebrate her 75th birthday quietly in February, the Royal Mail is putting the finishing touches to stamps to commemorate the British design genius who epitomised the Swinging Sixties. The stamp will show a model wearing a black mini.

As she says: 'I didn't think of the mini as sexual but as an instrument of liberation.' And not all gentlemen objected, of course...

How can chef James go without Broccoli, Beer, Goose and Kettle?

They started 2008 as this year's golden couple, the dishy celebrity chef and the stunning former Miss England. But as the year ends, things have cooled for TV gourmand James Martin, 36, and modelturnedsnapper Sally Kettle, 26.

Just a month after Saturday Kitchen presenter Martin, who has enjoyed relationships with a string of blonde beauties, including actress Claire Goose and TV presenter Alice Beer, was professing his devotion to Sally in his autobiography, I learn the pair have parted company.
James Martin

James Martin and Sally Kettle: Gone off the boil

'The thing that makes her the perfect woman, is this,' gushes Martin in his book (after praising her career achievements). 'Sally likes cars. She really likes cars.

Beauty, brains, a good laugh and a love of driving fast in cool cars. A man cannot ask for more. Her cooking isn't bad, either.'

Alas it seems this was not enough for the chef, whose former love Bond producer Barbara Broccoli tried to woo him with an £180,000 Aston Martin.

* Despite their impending multi-million-pound divorce, Formula 1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone and his statuesque wife, Slavica, suspended marital hostilities over Christmas. The couple met in London on December 25 and flew to Belgrade where they posed for what appeared to be amicable local press photographs. Slavica appeares to be wrapping her arms lovingly around her estranged husband. However I am told: 'Slavica has been putting her arms around her husband for years, don't read anything into that - she remains determined to divorce him.' Ecclestone, now back in Britain, tells me: 'Don't believe everything you read.' As I revealed, Croatia-born Slavica, 50, packed her bags and left last month while Ecclestone was in Brazil watching Lewis Hamilton win the world championship.

GMTV hunk Ben Shephard, who makes his film debut in next summer's blockbuster Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince, is considering switching from TV presenting to acting. And naturally he has set his sights modestly low. 'I'd like to play the next James Bond,' he tells Closer magazine. 'I'll probably be snapped up once people have seen me in Harry Potter.' So what is his breakthrough role? 'I played a wizard barber. I wore a beard and side-burns - more facial hair than I've ever had.' Daniel Craig must be terrified.

PS
As Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer announces the line-up for the literary festival to be held at the family's Althorp estate next June, it looks like things could be a tad awkward, as it includes former spin doctor Alastair Campbell.

In his diaries Campbell revealed something of a crush on Diana despite labelling her 'princess coathanger'. And will Spencer, who notoriously doesn't forget a grudge, bear any ill-feeling towards the man who described him as 'inbred looking' and 'a hypocritical, upper-class little pillock'?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-1102908/Book-claims-Aitken-royal-blood.html
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