NADINE DORRIES: How can Russell Brand's wife stand by a man who once sent a car to pick up a girl of 16 from school?

For days now, the country has been talking of Russell Brand – and Russell Brand alone. The accusations, the claims and counter-claims, the tearful revelations, the rambling defences.

One person has been strangely absent in so much of this torrent of news: his wife Laura.

In these pages yesterday, Katie Hind reported that the ‘comedian’s’ wife of six years – the mother of his two daughters and currently expecting another baby – is standing by her controversial man . . . for now.

Laura is the author of a parenting book, a home-maker who regularly serves his favourite meals.

She seems to have been a stabilising influence on him: the saint who supposedly exorcised the ‘demon’ inside him.

Russell Brand’s wife Laura is the author of a parenting book, a home-maker who regularly serves his favourite meals

For days now, the country has been talking of Russell Brand – and Russell Brand alone

The couple first dated when she was 19 and he was 30 – before meeting again years later by a London canal, a moment about which Laura said: ‘It was like he’d organised it.’

They got back together in 2015 – and, under Laura’s careful influence, Brand seems to have transformed.

As far as we know, there hasn’t been a whisper of his previous hell-raising behaviour or his endless womanising since they rekindled their romance.

With the help of this beautiful woman – and not before time – he at last appears to have settled down.

Now, as this ugly saga continues to unfold and more allegations about Brand’s historic behaviour continue to surface, I can’t help but feel for her.

How long can she wear this mask of wifely stoicism while she watches her world disintegrate around her?

Like so many women before her who suffer enormous public pressure as a result of their husband’s misdemeanours, it is clear that, commendably, Laura is putting her children first.

Every mother knows there is no love greater than the one she has for her child, no instinct truer than what is right for them.

Nevertheless, she must be facing a terrible dilemma.

Suddenly, life at the school gates – her oldest is just settling into Year Two – is going to be far more difficult than it was.

Surely the thoughts have crossed her mind: should I leave him? But what would it do to my girls – let alone my baby on the way?

No doubt, too, she is remembering her six years of marriage with the man she has loved. Perhaps she feels there are two Russell Brands, the philanderer she barely knew – and the family man she has lived with every day.

Ending the marriage, uprooting the children and quitting their £3 million riverside home in Oxfordshire could cause huge, and possibly lasting, upset.

Should she throw him out? Well, if Laura wanted Brand to leave and he refused, the pendulum of the law has swung too far in favour of the father.

Brand has just as much right as she does to live there. Without a court order, she has no automatic entitlement to turn him out on to the street.

So it’s not that simple.

Yet I must say this. As a mother of daughters myself, I cannot fathom how any woman could continue to support a man who had allegedly dispatched a taxi to collect a 16-year-old girl from school to bring her to his flat.

Russell Brand and his wife Laura Gallacher talk their baby daughter Mabel for a stroll round Primrose Hill in London on November 5, 2017

Brand denies the claims against him. But how long can Laura continue to defend her husband knowing every graphic detail of those sordid allegations – and with multiple official probes into his behaviour under way?

How can she lie next to him in the dark of night, without the agonised words of his alleged victims running through her mind?

When Laura’s daughters are old enough to understand the vile accusations against their father, will they understand her decision to stand by him?

I hope she has her explanation ready.

If not, she should do what I would in her shoes – and cut him dead for ever.

Get our children into the garden

Actor Jim Carter, better known to most of us as butler Carson in Downton Abbey, is campaigning for gardening to be added to the school curriculum, in order to get young people off their phones and into the outdoors. It’s a wonderful endeavour.

This summer has been one of the best of my life, as I have had an enthusiastic deputy gardener looking after my shrubs with me – my two‑year-old granddaughter. Armed with a Peter Rabbit watering can, she has helped me tend to my vegetables every day.

Actor Jim Carter, better known to most of us as butler Carson in Downton Abbey, is campaigning for gardening to be added to the school curriculum

She tops up the hedgehogs’ food, passes me bird seed as I fill the feeder and sits in the wheelbarrow with our harvested potatoes. This weekend, I’m making a wildlife pond from an old Belfast sink so I can introduce her to tadpoles, frogs and water boatmen.

If only every child could have these enriching experiences in the outdoors. The benefits are countless, but even if the only advantage was that they spent less time in front of a screen, then surely that would be enough.

In former Tory minister Rory Stewart’s latest book, Politics On The Edge, I come in at sixth place on his list of the worst people in politics. Why? For being a Boris supporter. Far from being offended, I will take my inclusion as an honour.

I’m not ashamed of being a Leave‑voting Conservative, despite what hardline Remainer Rory – an Eton-educated son of a colonial official who tutored the young princes William and Harry – makes of me. I find his ignoble attacks on individuals disappointing for a man with the advantage of his privilege – but I wish him every success with his book.

In former Tory minister Rory Stewart’s latest book, Politics On The Edge, I come in at sixth place on his list of the worst people in politics

…so that’s why Kate is glowing!

Kate Moss is reported to loathe Russell Brand so much that no one was allowed to mention his name in her presence after they allegedly slept together in 2006.

No wonder she looked positively glowing at a party in London on Monday.

Make up with your dad, Megs 

Thomas Markle has appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and asked to see his grandchildren… again.

Poor Thomas often begs this of Meghan – who invariably ignores him.

Is he just an attention-seeker causing trouble, or does this 79-year-old, in poor health, truly love his daughter and suspect time is not on his side?

Thomas Markle has appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and asked to see his grandchildren… again

If Thomas dies and there has been no rapprochement with his estranged daughter – or any happy meeting with his adorable grandchildren – not only would that be terribly sad, it would also be a bad look for the Sussexes.

I don’t know who Harry and Meghan pay for help with their PR these days, but I don’t think it’s working.

During safety demonstrations on planes, we’re told: ‘Ladies, remove high-heeled shoes, as these may tear the evacuation slide.’ 

Yet when the Princess of Wales visited a Royal Navy air station yesterday, she stepped off a helicopter in her £650 Gianvito Rossi heels with aplomb. 

When a technician fitted her with a life jacket, she said: ‘There might be a bit of a bang.’ Thankfully, the only explosion here was a blast of sheer class.