EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: IT'S UNLIKELY NO 10 HAVE PUT UP BUNTING

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is unlikely to have festooned Downing Street with bunting to welcome Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff Sue Gray. 

The pair have form. He reportedly blocked Kemi Badenoch's request to install Sue as permanent secretary at the business department. 

He also riled Gray by attempting to prevent her joining Starmer's team. 

Normally, Case, 45, formerly Prince William's private secretary, would be indispensable. 

Gray may decide otherwise. Case could make history as the first Cabinet Secretary not to get the traditional retirement peerage.

 

One of the new PM's urgent priorities is reducing the burgeoning prison population. Might the King help? Regal milestones have previously been used as an excuse to show royal clemency, and the second anniversary of the King's accession in September would be another opportunity. 

The last time it was done en masse was for George V's coronation in 1911, when sentences were reduced by between seven and 90 days. 

But in 1953, home secretary David Maxwell Fyfe opposed the tradition, saying: 'In the past it has led to few expressions of gratitude from those who benefited from it and grumbling from those who did not.'

During a ban on interviewing politicians as polling happened yesterday, BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Emma Barnett filled some of the vacuum with a confession. 

'I'm going to fess up as someone who's going for the first time on a speed awareness course. I got it for 23mph in a 20 zone.' 

Even haughty Emma couldn't argue her way out of that one.

 

Former pin-up Patrick Mower claims male actors age better in the TV and film world than females. 

'Women end up getting typecast as OAPs whereas men get the Lothario roles,' declares Mower, 85, with a straight face. 

'I am very old but I play 20 years younger than me in Emmerdale. I think that, without being sexist or ageist, men age better than women.' 

Will Patrick's proximity to his 100th birthday protect him from a thick lip when the female acting fraternity catch up with him?

 

Before the polling booths closed, Charles Moore nostalgically recalled his late father Richard's doomed election stand for the old Liberals against firebrand Ian Paisley in North Antrim in 1970. 

'He foolishly turned down the generous offer of a man who said he had voted Unionist 92 times at the previous election and was happy to do a like service for him.'

 

Yoko Ono expects the return of husband John's Patek Philippe 2499 wristwatch, worth at least £8million. 

It was allegedly stolen by a chauffeur in 2005. After a decade of litigation, the Swiss Supreme Court is expected to rule in her favour. 

But rich-as-Croesus Yoko stored the watch away for decades and didn't notice it was missing until 2011. How did she tell the time?

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2024-07-05T00:59:31Z dg43tfdfdgfd