Hardcastle

CABINET Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill has been briefing the Queen’s private secretary, Edward Young, on the Tory leadership candidates. HM has met them – even Mark Harper – but hasn’t built any rapport. Most familiar is no-hoper Andrea Leadsom, who, as Lord President of the Council, had regular audiences. Sedwill is planning formal talks with the two final candidates. With Boris most likely to be in the frame, it could be a short conversation. If triumphant, Boris is tipped to fire him. ENDORSING Boris on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, former Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell seemed to forget Johnson’s lack of support in the 2012 Plebgate affair when Mitchell was threatened with arrest after being accused of swearing at Downing Street police. Boris described the threat as ‘wholly commonsensical’. A classic case of offering every possible assistance short of actual help? TREASURY Secretary Liz Truss is no stranger to the full-on smacker Foreign Office minister Mark Field delivered to Jeremy Hunt’s wife Lucia this week. Field, who had an affair with Liz, likes to give ‘proper kisses’ to women he likes, say chums. To many women, Field’s smooch looked like an unwarranted advance. ANNEKA Rice, pictured, empathises with the late Terry Wogan, who complained that his Madame Tussauds waxwork had been recycled to make models of Ant and Dec. Anneka tells Radio 4: ‘My body’s been melted down to become Kim Kardashian’s bottom.’ RECEIVING his knighthood yesterday, Michael Palin wasn’t worrying why fellow Python John Cleese hasn’t been honoured. ‘I am too naughty,’ admits Cleese. ‘I am untrustworthy, irreverent and vulgar. They have never asked me.’ Cleese and Palin? Chalk and cheese! TURNING 100 tomorrow, Peggy Archer, alias June Spencer, chuckles at a listener’s letter after her soap opera daughter Jennifer secretly became pregnant. ‘I think you ought to know,’ it said, ‘that your daughter Jennifer is going to have a baby. Only three people know: the doctor, the vicar and your daughter Lillian. Why don’t you know? Don’t you listen to the programme?’ FORMER Waitrose Food editor William Sitwell, fired after suggesting a series on killing vegans, has now lost his job at Saga magazine. ‘I was too expensive,’ he declared, picking up the Boisdale Life writing award at a Ranald Macdonald lunch in Canary Wharf. CURIOUS that Sir Elton John’s biopic Rocketman is banned in Samoa over homosexual content despite the common practice there of Fa’afafine, allowing young boys to be raised as girls. They even have their own beauty pageant and, later on, are allowed to marry partners of whichever sex they prefer. Drole vieux monde!