He’s tried his hand at corporate hospitality and ‘sponsorship management’, attempted to muscle in on the market for Covid tests, and even cropped up in an ad on Chinese TV, during which he reminisced about being nourished on Jersey milk from the royal herd at Windsor.
Now, just months after I disclosed that he’d entered the wheeler-dealer world of commercial property – paying just over £5million to become landlord of a series of shops, small businesses, bars and restaurants in Bath – the King’s nephew Peter Phillips is also trying his luck in an entirely different sphere.
He has, I can reveal, just become the director of Maritime Passport Ltd, a fledgling company founded only last year.
It does not, as yet, appear to have a website, but it is, I understand, a business specialising in digitising shipping certifications. In landlubber’s terms, this appears to mean adapting old systems so that they continue to function effectively in the modern, digital age.
That presumably explains why one of Phillips’s four co-directors is quite a boffin. She’s Professor Basak Akdemir, 50, who, among numerous other roles, serves as a trustee of the Turkish Maritime Education Foundation and earned her PhD with a thesis entitled: ‘Improving Supply Forecasting within the Shipping Industry.’
Understandably, Phillips, 47, whose latest girlfriend since divorcing Autumn Kelly is writer and nurse Harriet Sperling, can’t quite match that.
He has a degree in Sports Science from Exeter University and, perhaps more pertinently, was from childhood onwards regularly aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia – used by his sister for her pre-wedding party to Mike Tindall.
Above all else, he has, in his mother, Princess Anne, someone whose passion for the sea comes second only to her love for being in the saddle.
It’s a passion which periodically yields some sparkling perks – most notably a diamond tiara which matched the antique necklace which Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip gave her for her 18th birthday in 1968.
The tiara came not from her parents but the World Wide Shipping Group, one of whose ships Anne had launched. Perhaps Phillips’s new role will help him find a rock – or two – for Harriet?
the King’s nephew Peter Phillips (pictured at Royal Ascot races in June 2024) is now the director of Maritime Passport Ltd, a fledgling company specialising in digitising shipping certifications
A young Peter Phillips (centre) waving from the Royal Yacht Britannia next to Queen Elizabeth (right) and his sister Zara (left)
Phillips, 47, latest girlfriend since divorcing Autumn Kelly is writer and nurse Harriet Sperling (left)
The smart set’s talking about… Ginger Spice Geri and her husband’s racy ambitions
As racing fans look forward to the Grand National today, Geri Halliwell is betting on an expansion of her equine empire.
I hear that the Spice Girls star and her husband, Formula 1 boss Christian Horner, want to build a huge £30,000 eight-horse walker at their Oxfordshire stables.
Geri, 52, who owns a number of race horses, has applied for planning permission to construct the 72ft-wide steel framed structure next to a stud barn.
Their country estate, an 18th century former vicarage near Banbury, already boasts an indoor swimming pool, boating lake and helipad. The Horners have applied to the local council to build the ‘discreet’ 22ft-high horse walker with low wall cladding and a black corrugated roof.
In a statement, their planning agent said: ‘The installation of the horse walker will ensure that they are exercised properly, regardless of weather conditions and other limiting factors.’
Geri and Christian own a string of racing horses including nine-year-old gelding Lift Me Up, It’s Raining Men, Look At Mee and Mi Chico Latino. All of them are named after Geri’s solo career hits and the couple also own a horse racing company called OMBI set up in 2021.
Geri Halliwell-Horner in the parade ring on day four of the Cheltenham Festival in March 2025
Bailey’s boy discusses manhood
Photographer David Bailey’s son Sascha embarked on the life-changing move to become a transgender woman to ‘escape the trauma’ of his unhappy marriage to Tokyo lawyer Mimi Nishikawa, as I disclosed last year.
Having decided against transitioning, the art curator is now going to celebrate masculinity on his new podcast, Try To Hit The Pool. ‘It’s going to be about manhood, and what it means in this day and age,’ he tells me at the launch party for Osteria Del Mare restaurant in the Strand London, which he attended with his pregnant girlfriend, photographer Lucy Brown, left. He adds: ‘It’ll also be about self-acceptance.’
Sascha has yet to discover the sex of his unborn child. He jokes: ‘It can only be one of two genders.’
Photographer David Bailey’s son Sascha embarked on the life-changing move to become a transgender woman to ‘escape the trauma’ of his unhappy marriage to Tokyo lawyer Mimi Nishikawa but subsequently decided against transitioning
How Rory Stewart sparked ‘furious diplomatic spat’
Now a star podcaster on The Rest is Politics, Rory Stewart nearly wrecked a delicate intelligence and diplomatic effort when he was a Foreign Office minister.
That’s the claim made by his fellow former minister Mark Field in his newly published memoirs.
Stewart was briefed about a delicate matter concerning the imprisonment of a British dual national abroad and was told to keep his answer brief and calm.
Instead, playing to the gallery, he is said to have ‘blurted out’ a vivid assertion that the government was going to take ‘extreme action’ to investigate the matter.
Writing in The End Of An Era, Field claims Stewart’s irresponsibility caused a ‘furious diplomatic spat’ behind the scenes in 2017 and nearly resulted in the citizen in question suffering ‘prolonged detention’.
Stewart tells me: ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate to play out these internal classified Foreign Office conversations about jailed British nationals.’
Fellow former minister Mark Field says Rory Stewart nearly wrecked a delicate intelligence and diplomatic effort when he was a Foreign Office minister
Adolescence star’s ex moves on with another fellow thespian
Adolescence star Erin Doherty was so serious about her relationship with girlfriend Sophie Melville that the pair bought a London home together.
The actresses have, though, since split up and Melville has now found love with another member of their profession.
I hear that the Welsh actress is going out with Lee Braithwaite, who starred opposite Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in the film We Live In Time.
Sophie and Lee, a former pupil of Harrogate Ladies’ College described as non-binary, met while performing in Cowbois, a ‘queer western comedy’ at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
‘It’s taught me so much about myself, and I wish I’d experienced that ten years ago,’ Swansea-born Sophie, 34, said of the production.
Meanwhile, Erin, who played Princess Anne in Netflix hit The Crown, said last month that she finally came to terms with her sexuality after years of being left ‘unsatisfied’ going out with men.
She’d been a ‘people pleaser’ and had boyfriends in a bid to fit in, before one ‘mind-blowing’ relationship with a woman changed everything.
Adolescence star Erin Doherty is reportedly dating Lee Braithwaite, who starred opposite Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in the film We Live In Time
As a star of Cold Feet and The Fast Show, John Thomson might have expected to be welcomed with open arms to celebrity dating app Raya. Alas, not.
‘Raya won’t have me,’ wails the actor and comedian, 55.
‘I’m on a waiting list. I’ve got 15 referrals and they still won’t have me.’
Thomson, who has two daughters with ex-wife Samantha Sharp, explains: ‘I’ve been a year single. It’s hard, really tough.’ Form an orderly queue, ladies…
Cold Feet and The Fast Show star John Thomson says celebrity dating app Raya ‘won’t have me,’ despite the fact he has 15 referrals
Courageous writer Julie Burchill, paralysed after spinal surgery, recently described her current treatment in a Sussex NHS rehab unit as ‘pure bliss’.
However, her bliss has now ended after a disturbed male patient tried to get in bed with her early yesterday.
‘Loony male patient tried to get into bed with me at 5am – I yelled, “What the f***!” indignantly, but two women on our bay can’t even speak. Have complained to NHS and NHS Sussex. I felt very Lady Bracknell.’
Courageous writer Julie Burchill, paralysed after spinal surgery, says her rehab was disrupted when a disturbed male patient tried to get in bed with on her ward
(Very) modern manners
He’s the Savile Row suited restaurateur who knows when it’s a full moon by the voices in the dining room – they’re a little more skittish.
But Jeremy King, adored by Princess Diana when he owned her favourite restaurant, Le Caprice, fears that convivial chatter now expires at dusk.
‘Londoners are eating earlier and earlier and becoming strangers to the fun of late-night dining,’ he says.
He’s now on a crusade to recapture the night, knocking 25 per cent off the bills of those dining after 9.15pm at The Park and – on the old Caprice site – Arlington. ‘It could almost be the early 80s,’ King insists, displaying no sign of wilting at 70.
Jeremy King (pictured), adored by Princess Diana when he owned her favourite restaurant, Le Caprice
Passion dies for Bridgerton love birds Bessie and Sam
This would have Lady Whistledown’s quill flowing!
Bridgerton stars Bessie Carter and Sam Phillips, who found love on the set of the racy Netflix costume drama, have split up.
And in a very modern move, Bessie, 31, who plays Prudence Featherington, right, has deleted all trace of their romance from her social media page.
Sam, 40, played Lord Debling, a suitor of Prudence’s sister, Penelope. ‘Sam and Bessie are not together any more,’ a source tells me.
The daughter of acting royalty, Bessie’s mother is Harry Potter star Dame Imelda Staunton and her father is Jim Carter, best known as the butler Carson in Downton Abbey.
Sam and Bessie, left, first went public with their relationship at the London premiere of Wonka in 2023.
She will soon be seen starring as Love In A Cold Climate author Nancy Mitford in the television drama Outrageous.
Bridgerton stars Bessie Carter and Sam Phillips, who found love on the set of the racy Netflix costume drama, have reportedly split up
