Ephraim Hardcastle

Jeremy Corbyn moving into no 10 troubles the royal household. Might a Labour chancellor divert profits from the Duchies of Lancaster (£20.1m this year) and Cornwall (£21.7m) which are received, respectively, by the Queen and Prince Charles? Charles wants a slimmed-down monarchy, but would he welcome Corbyn’s support in achieving this outcome? WRITER Clive James, 79, who said four years ago that he was close to dying from leukaemia, confides that his daughter, Claerwen, 48, planted a tree that was meant to outlive him. He tells classicist Mary Beard for a TV documentary: ‘Well, it died and I didn’t. So, take that, tree!’ Gary Lineker, who earns £1.8million from the BBC, tweeted the other day: ‘Why is it Ok to just lie in politics?’ ITV’s Piers Morgan: ‘Are crisps beneficial to children’s health?’ Lineker (who advertises Walkers crisps, pictured): ‘We all deserve a treat.’ Morgan: ‘What a treat for the Nhs when it has to pick up the cost later.’ In 1972, the BBC sacked popular presenter Bernard Braden for appearing in a TV advertisement for Stork margarine. HARRY and Meghan should forget settling in Windsor and instead emigrate to Toronto, where her TV show, Suits, was made. So says a paper there, adding: ‘Toronto could shield them from the swirling toxic circus in London by nurturing their souls and giving them a geographical safe space... free from the prying eyes of snickering royal watchers and those determined to cut her down to size.’ The late writer Christopher Hitchens said Toronto was ‘a somewhat blander version of North America: a United States with a welfare regime and a more polite street etiquette, and the reassuring visage of Queen Elizabeth on the currency’. LORD Sugar’s pledge on ITV’s good Morning Britain to quit the uk if Jeremy Corbyn becomes PM elicits comments on social media, including: ‘Massive rise in Labour support expected…’ Short-fused Sugar responds: ‘Shut up you lying pr***.’ The BBC is fastidious about its stars’ public utterances. excepting his lordship. TORY MP Richard Bacon, addressing Chancellor Philip Hammond in the Commons: ‘Income tax [introduced in 1799 to cover the cost of the Napoleonic Wars] was supposed to be a temporary measure. Can the Chancellor update us on his plans finally to get rid of this tax, or will it, like the backstop, be with us for the next 200 years?’ Hammond: ‘The Kingdom of Belgium was intended to be a temporary construct, and that seems to be with us as well.’ So reassuring. The Church of england’s prayer book contains one for Parliament, requiring that ‘all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavours, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations’. Some hope! Email: peter.mckay@dailymail.co.uk