PHOTO OP: The Daily Mail cover

Row over royal pin-up

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

Thus begins Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, Lolita, about an older man’s passion for an under-age girl ? the kind of subject Bollywood dare not touch. The novel is worth reading to obtain a better understanding of why Lolita-ish photographs of the Queen’s granddaughter, Princess Beatrice, in the glossy magazine, Tatler, have aroused admiration and uneasiness in equal measure.

Beatrice, who is the daughter of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, the Duchess of York, was 16 when the photographs were taken for the cover story, “Royal sweetheart”. She has just turned 17.

Beatrice agreed to pose for the pictures and give her first interview to Tatler in return for a donation to a charity which tries to help children with dyslexia from which she herself suffers.

But should her mother, who has been involved in many a scandal in the past, have allowed her daughter be to packaged in so alluring a manner?

“Anything you can do, Mum,” was the perceptive headline in the Daily Mail.

A Scottish newspaper remarkably protested at her early sexualisation: “The pose is sexy and glamorous. The soulful eyes of a beautiful teenager smoulder seductively as her head turns over her bare shoulder to look out from a glossy magazine cover, her chestnut hair cascading in wild curls down to a siren-red silky evening gown. It’s an image that would sell thousands of copies of the sort of gentlemen’s publications that occupy the upper shelves at the newsagents.”

At 17, Beatrice can claim to be a young adult, a good five years older than Nabokov’s Lolita or four years senior to Shakespeare’s Juliet.

However, others have pointed out that if Beatrice were now to be hounded by tabloid photographers, neither she nor her mother could make a case for invasion of privacy.

FACE TO FACE: Lord Swraj Paul (left) with Robin Cook

Missing Cook

Unlike Tony Blair, Lord Swraj Paul was due to attend the funeral last week in Edinburgh of the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, who died during a walking holiday in Scotland, aged 59.

Occasionally, I would spot Cook at Indian functions ? the last was at Lancaster House when he and his wife, Gaynor, attended the party given by Swraj to celebrate the wedding of his son, Angad.

In 1997, when the Queen went to India for the 50th anniversary of Indian independence, her whole trip was ruined after Cook had infuriated New Delhi by offering to mediate over Kashmir.

But Swraj gives Cook the credit for setting up the Indo-British Round Table and for laying the foundations for the current excellent relations between India and Britain.

“He was a great foreign secretary,” insists Swraj.

Cook will be badly missed because he put the case against the Iraq war better than anyone else in Britain.

His electrifying Commons resignation speech ended with the words: “It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics. Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support. I intend to join those who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government.”

Cook’s resignation speech is widely considered to be his finest and the best to have been heard in Parliament for a generation.

BREATHING FIRE: Andrew Flintoff

Never say die

What seems to differentiate the current Australian and England cricket teams from the Indian one is the “never say die” attitude of the former. They are willing to fight right down to the last wicket, as illustrated by the batting of Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz at Edgbaston, and Steve Harmison’s bowling which gave England a two-run victory.

In contrast, Indian players appear to use the game to advance their business interests. If less energy was spent on promoting mobile phones, restaurants, clothes, drinks and other products, they might be hungrier for success. The case of David Beckham is a good example of a once great footballer who lost his way once he became an advertising icon.

Indian cricketers should be paid well, of course, but then given a choice: “Either go into business or play cricket ? but you can’t do both.”

There is another baffling point about this England side. It would be absurd to suggest there is any kind of racism when it comes to selection. Mark Ramprakash has been given ample opportunities as has Vikram Solanki. Nasser Hussain has been England captain, even. But England’s players appear to bond best when the side is all white, as is currently the case, and its heroes fair-haired, as is also the case with Andrew Flintoff. For all this, I have no explanation.

LAST MAN STANDING: Pervez Musharraf

Smooth talk

Who is Pervez Musharraf?

Anyone who has answered, “President of Pakistan,” should go to the back of the class.

The correct answer is he is the man who gives interviews to Western TV networks ? and fits in running the country during the ad breaks.

It has to be said as a giver of interviews, he is superb. Last week’s to the BBC, in the last of a three-part series, The New al Qaida, showed him at his most plausible when interrogated by reporter Peter Taylor.

Musharraf brims with honesty, responds without prevarication and comes across as someone who has convinced himself and, importantly, the Americans and the Brits, that he is the only barrier against a takeover of Pakistan by mad mullahs.

Although three of the four suicide bombers on July 7 were British Pakistani, he argues Britain ? and not Pakistan ? was to blame.

“Even if they visited Pakistan, and they contacted some extremists here, the reality is that they have been in the UK for 20 years,” says Musharraf. “The indoctrination, the mindset did not change here. Radicalisation took place back at home, wherever they live.”

Poor Taylor did not know enough to ask him about Omar Sheikh, who masterminded the kidnap of the American journalist, Daniel Pearl. Sheikh was born in Britain but made in Pakistan.

Tittle tattle

Lakshmi Mittal has not yet been offered a peerage but were this to happen, presumably for services to Lakshmi Mittal, he would not necessarily turn it down.

Lord Mittal of Berkeley Square has a certain ring about it. Lord Mittal of Maniktala sounds even better except that peers have to pick places in Britain.

However, his Indian nationality may not be such a problem, I gather.

Though I have not yet checked this for myself, his lawyers have thumbed through the rulebook and believe a peerage may be conferred on any Commonwealth national.