Ephraim Hardcastle

SMUGGLED into No 10 by the Blairs to celebrate mass, Fr Michael Seed, 60, was perceived as a chum of Tony and Cherie. They’ll be saddened to learn that the Franciscan monk, who converted Ann Widdecombe and John Gummer to Catholicism, has fallen into ill health. One of his few setbacks was former Tory MP and diarist Alan Clark, who died aged 71 in 1999. He evaded Rome after asking if he’d be reunited with his dogs in paradise. ‘Dogs have no souls and don’t go to heaven,’ declared Seed. Clark died an Anglican. PACKING her pyjamas for Balmoral, the Queen was cheered, on Tuesday, to meet beancounter Sir Mark Hudson and learn her Duchy of Lancaster income is up 8 per cent to £19.2million. She’s already shown her gratitude for his skill with the royal abacus, giving him a KCVO in last month’s birthday honours. He has a long way to go to catch up with his predecessor Charles Kay-Shuttleworth. He accumulated three royal knighthoods – the Order of St John, the KCVO and the Garter. Kerching! NEWSNIGHT asked Sky’s Kay Burley to appear on Wednesday night’s edition to talk about the BBC’s gender pay gap. Kay, 56, surely content with her own £400,000-plus salary, replied: ‘No, I need to take in washing and run round with a duster.’ Grilled in her absence, James Purnell, 47, BBC radio boss and former Blairite cabinet minister, waffled: ‘The key criterion is value to the audience.’ Kay, who was watching, bluntly responded on Twitter: ‘B****cks!’ Don’t hold back, Kay! ROGUEISH actor Peter O’Toole had a tender spot for new Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker, 35. The pair, pictured, appeared together in the 2006 film Venus, about a veteran actor who befriends a young lady. Smitten O’Toole gushed: ‘She’s not only an accomplished young woman, but she’s a very, very special person. She’s got lots and lots of qualities that I’m extremely fond of.’ Too late to ask what they were. Peter died in 2013 aged 81. NO love lost between Old Etonian tycoon Henry Keswick, 78, and Lord Patten, 73. Reviewing Chris Patten’s memoir First Confession in The Spectator, Keswick accuses him of humbug, adding: ‘He was potentially open to criminal investigation for breaking the Official Secrets Act in filming The Last Governor (2012) about his time in Hong Kong.’ Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve had to rule that it was not in the public interest to have Patten’s collar felt by PC Plod. FRENCH president Emmanuel Macron, whose defence cuts have led France’s armed forces chief to resign in protest, will cost the country’s 36,000 town halls £2.2million in new picture frames to accommodate his official portrait. The 50 x 70cm photo, widely mocked for mimicking actor Kevin Spacey in House of Cards, is 5cm too tall for the frames that have housed all of his predecessors. THE late Denis Thatcher’s drinking pattern on long-distance flights is recalled in Ben Wright’s new book Order, Order!: ‘An opener, a brightener, a lifter, a tincture, a large gin and tonic, without the tonic, a snifter, a snort, a snorter.’ Doorsh to manual, Margaret.