Ephraim Hardcastle

RADIO 4 presenter Mishal Husain sounded put out when her interviewee, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, mentioned the Corbyn controversy yesterday. After she grilled him about hostilities betwixt Boris Johnson and No 10, Grayling pointed out: ‘Actually, you should be asking the question about Jeremy Corbyn’s fitness to lead the Labour Party.’ A nervoussounding Ms Husain lamely interjected, ‘What the Labour Party is saying is very different to what you’ve just said about him,’ then shut him down with a terse, ‘Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary, thank you very much.’ Might bonny Mishal have an agenda? IS THE Court Circular on its last legs? The daily diary of royal events, issued by Buckingham Palace, was once required reading to see who is in or out of favour with HM. Now it is bypassed by royals who communicate via social media. ‘Younger members of the family wouldn’t regret its disappearance because it reveals who’s busiest,’ says my source, explaining: ‘The Queen is more indulgent of her less-busy millennial grandchildren, possibly fearing for their mental health if they have to cut too many ribbons.’ ELIZABETH Day’s hardback edition of her most recent novel, The Party, was ‘For Jasper’, to whom she also paid this touching tribute: ‘And thank you to Jasper Waller-Bridge, for running into the street and for being in my corner every day since then. This one’s for you, with all my love.’ This doesn’t appear in the new paperback edition. Music promoter Jasper, 30, no longer seems to be running into the street with, or after, cerebral femme fatale Elizabeth, 39, pictured. BBC news correspondent Dan Johnson, who presented the deplored Sir Cliff Richard raid coverage, which is likely to land the corporation with a legal bill of more than £2million, is now temporarily stationed in Italy, covering the Genoa bridge tragedy. Before the court case he was on assignments to India and Thailand, kept away from UK stories during the BBC-Sir Cliff rumpus. When will it be safe for Desperate Dan to return? CHIEF Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss, 43, who suggests that we build on the green belt, is by no means a traditional Conservative. She attended a state primary school in Paisley and a comprehensive school in Leeds. Her parents were Left-wing Labour supporters of CND who went to peace camps and demos at which young antiThatcher Liz – aged three when the Iron Lady came to power – would chant ‘Maggie out!’ She once modelled a bomb ‘from some old carpet rolls’ for an antinuclear demo. What larks! THOSE who have paid £12,950 for a signedby-Prince Charles copy of The Highgrove Florilegium, might fancy another likewisepriced volume – The Transylvania Florilegium, for which a team of artists dispatched to Romania captured the wild flowers of the region where HRH has two cottages. Descended from Vlad the Impaler, Charles likes to point out that he has ‘a stake in the country’. It’s the way he tells ’em. Email: peter.mckay@dailymail.co.uk