Victoria Beckham was busy promoting her beauty range in New York last week – with a little helper on hand in the shape of her daughter Harper.
It made for some sweet pictures on Instagram, but one thing did cross my mind: the Easter holidays are over, so why isn’t Harper, who is only 14, back home and in school like her peers?
The teenager stands and poses like a red-carpet veteran in her black crop top and jeans with a perfect manicure on show.
In many recent photographs I’ve seen, she dresses like her mum, too, in elegant clothes from the VB brand that, sometimes, aren’t always age-appropriate (those slip dresses!) in my view.
She’s spotted out with designer handbags, no doubt borrowed from Mum’s vast collection. And she is, according to reports, launching her own beauty brand later this year. HIKU by Harper is Korean-inspired with the ‘glass-skin’ products Gen Z and Gen A are mad for.
Harper is morphing into Victoria’s mini-me before our eyes – and that alarms me.
The Beckhams are a couple with global business interests. Of course they must travel to promote them. They are devoted parents, too, and like to have their children with them, which is commendable. Harper is forever being photographed alongside her mum, dad or brothers on foreign jaunts.
I’m sure her education is a priority and, like the offspring of other jet-setting families, she’ll have access to the best personal tutors to make up for the missed lessons. But is that enough?
Harper stands and poses like a red-carpet veteran in her black crop top and jeans with a perfect manicure on show (Pictured with Victoria in New York)
Despite her immense privilege, might young Harper occasionally long for a life more ordinary: the ups and downs of the school day, sleepovers and shopping trips with mates, the giggles, gossip and fun as you lay the foundations for friendships that will last a lifetime?
As a mother of three daughters, I know how vital those early teenage years are. It’s when youngsters learn to socialise and start to understand who they really are. That’s what I believe Harper Beckham needs now, to find her own way without potentially feeling she needs to emulate her hugely successful mum.
I have my own opinions about why eldest son Brooklyn left the Beckham fold and the pressure he perhaps felt to live up to his family name and all the glamour and success synonymous with it.
In his incendiary Instagram blast back in January, he claimed his family ‘values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brand Beckham comes first’.
He added that ‘family “love” is decided by how much you post on social media, or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo opp’.
The post implied that all was not as it may seem and that much of Brand Beckham is carefully choreographed to be good for business.
Damning words that must have truly wounded Victoria and David. We cannot know the truth and Brooklyn’s verdict may indeed be overly harsh or downright unfair.
But I cannot help worrying about Harper and her emergence into the limelight in the past year. She’s barely a teenager and should be in no rush to leave childhood behind to step into Victoria’s elegant (own brand) stilettos. There’s time enough ahead.
Harper needs to find her own way without potentially feeling she needs to emulate her hugely successful mum, writes Nadine Dorries
Help! I’m living in a money pit
I moved into my new house in December and set about a six-month renovation project.
For anyone considering something similar, let me give you a word of advice: don’t!
Not only has the cost of building materials increased to eye-watering levels, so has the cost of employing any tradesman to do just about anything.
I thought, as warm weather arrived, I’d be hosting drinks parties out on the new patio to the sound of a trickling water feature with blooming agapanthus as a backdrop. I was crazy!
The budget was spent by month three. I can see my builders hanging around for so long, I may be forced to include them on my tax return as dependants.
Yesterday, as I surveyed my roofless kitchen and the gaping hole that is the back end of the house, a friend sent me a message: ‘Do not be afraid of your six-month renovation project. You will look back on these six months as the most fulfilling two years of your life.’
Gallows humour is all I have left to comfort me now.
Delusional PM will go by summer
Keir Starmer tells us that he will still be Prime Minister at the next general election and that a ‘vast majority’ of Labour MPs support him.
Sadly, he is delusional, and it is a state that eventually afflicts most PMs at some point.
Keir Starmer tells us that he will still be Prime Minister at the next general election and that a ‘vast majority’ of Labour MPs support him, says our columnist
If indeed there was a ‘vast majority’ supporting him, I can promise you they would be out there, trying to shore him up as crisis after crisis unfolds.
They would be contacting journalists to make the point that he is doing the right thing and that he does have the parliamentary party behind him. To my knowledge, I can’t see that they are, which tells you all you need to know.
The weekend following the local elections will be a political frenzy when Labour MPs will move as a herd to remove Starmer before Parliament rises in July. That will enable a leadership election over the summer and a new leader to be in place by the time of the Labour Party conference in September.
However, I believe that Starmer, who believes himself to be far above the grubby game of politics, will resign before he is defenestrated.
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The votes are in… you’ve decided who should be the next Tess and Claudia
A poll by The Mail on Sunday on candidates to be the new presenters of Strictly has Rylan Clark and Zoe Ball top of the list.
I’ve nothing against either of them, but my initial thought was: ‘Please just pick someone who is normal and nice.’
My second thought was: ‘And carry out robust due diligence on whoever it is so there are no surprises in store.’
We’ve had enough dysfunctional and morally reprehensible individuals given high-profile roles at the Beeb.
As the number of people paying the licence fee falls by hundreds of thousands a year, I think one more scandal involving the jewel in the BBC’s light entertainment crown will be the final nail in Auntie’s coffin.
