Ephraim Hardcastle

FOREIGN Secretary Jeremy Hunt, 51, is Leader of the Week says France’s biggest paper, Le Journal du Dimanche, his demeanour indicating he’s ‘potentially cut from prime ministerial cloth’. Disappointingly they dismiss the PM, Theresa May, sniping that her recent Brexit summit with President Emmanuel Macron didn’t merit a press conference, or even a bland communique. There may be trouble ahead... STEPHEN Fry, pictured, defends entertainer Jack Whitehall, 30, who is facing a backlash from LGBT bores after Disney cast him as a gay film character, commenting: ‘I share your shame,’ adding: ‘ I played a straight man more than once. A FATHER even. I should have been sent for training, correction and adjustment years ago.’ Let’s hope his comment finds favour. He fled from Twitter on three occasions after his contributions were vilified by trolls. BBC editorial director, Kamal Ahmed, 50, attacks capitalism in a speech at the Edinburgh Book Festival, saying, inter alia: ‘Capitalism has simply failed in its central promise to protect people’s incomes.’ Perhaps so, but he was paid up to £199,999 as the state-financed BBC’s economics editor and goodness knows what he earns now he has been promoted. Who needs capitalism to become rich? WHEN Sir Bruce Forsyth died a year ago on Saturday, there was talk about a BBCorganised memorial service at Westminster Abbey. Sir Peter Hall’s memorial service at the Abbey next month will be exactly a year since his passing. Ronnie Corbett’s took place just over a year later and Ronnie Barker’s after just five months. However, it was Sir Bruce’s family’s express wish that a celebration of his life was in fact held at the London Palladium. Tv rent-a-pundit and playwright Bonnie Greer, 69, tweets a photo of broadcaster Andrew Neil dining with Brexiteer Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, inquiring: ‘Excuse me, Mr Neil. Do BBC presenters often dine with politicians? Just asking.’ Neil replies: ‘No, journalists never wine and dine politicians... Next incredibly stupid question, Bonnie.’ DAVID Blunkett, 71, has revisited on Radio 4 his messy, 2004 resignation as Home Secretary after it was discovered he had fasttracked a visa for the nanny of his ex-mistress, saucy publisher Kimberly Quinn. His lordship confessed on Reflections, with an impressive lack of self-pity: ‘If I’d not been the human being I am, I wouldn’t have got where I got... and I wouldn’t have had the traumas that I’ve experienced.’ AS our head of state relaxes at Balmoral, royal aides gossip about the future of the Aberdeenshire estate when it’s inherited by Prince Charles, noting that he has Highgrove in Gloucestershire, Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Birkhall in Aberdeenshire and Clarence House in London. With Balmoral’s golfing, fishing, shooting and hiking corporate lures, might he turn it into a money-spinning monument to his mother? Queen victoria’s Osborne House on the Isle of Wight became a grand monument under the care of English Heritage.