Sunday Briefing

Edina said this when slating Saffy's fashion sense, “You cannot give these sort of clothes to the poor, darling, I’m sure they’ve got enough to contend with without the added humiliation of wearing last season’s style." She also is quoted as having said the following, “When somebody deliberately over-educates themselves out of the possibility of useful employment, I take issue.” Ab Fab was famous for the stinging one liner and for more than a bon mot, so what would Patsy Stone say about today's news that their favoured retail refuge, Harvey Nichols, has warned of redundancies in an email to its 1,500 employees? You can trace the roots of Harvey Nichols back to 1831; much has changed since then. It has been owned since 1991 by Hong Kong tycoon Dickson Poon who took home £6m last year (before he was politely asked to bring it back). An afternoon tea in The Fifth Floor Cafe in London costs a scone-scorching £35 and the brand boasts stores in Doha, Dubai, Birmingham and Leeds. It sells sizzling fashions by way of hot destination shopping, dares to be different and inspires people (so it says) to stand out and be unique. But it seems the pandemic has no sense of class and ignores the fact that, to March 2019, the chain made pre-tax profits of £2.7m. “We value each of our employees and their contribution to the business and are doing everything we can to avoid or minimise the number of redundancies,” the company said.