Ephraim Hardcastle

BEFORE finishing his wellreceived ‘austerity is coming to an end’ Budget speech, Chancellor Philip Hammond – whose sacking was widely predicted – is touted to succeed Theresa May by the Tory-inclined Spectator magazine blog. A day’s a long time in politics. APROPOS of ‘Hammond as PM’, he’d have to fight (among others) ex-minister Justine Greening, 49. A Tory source says: ‘Now Ruth Davidson has confirmed she doesn’t want the job, Justine can stand unrivalled on a modern gay woman ticket.’ PRINCE Harry has offered a job to Lucia Kennedy, 19, pictured, a Meghan lookalike who guided their visit to a youth mental health event in Wellington, New Zealand. Miss Kennedy says: ‘I said to Harry, “I finish uni in two years, I’d love to come and work for you”. He said, “We’d love to have you. Just give us a yell when you come over and we’ll sort it out”.’ Is our ‘mystic reverence’ for monarchy waning? NOTICING that it’s Sir Philip Green stalking season, Channel 4 News’s Jon Snow claims: ‘I can say that he once furiously terminated an interview with me by physically shoving me into the lift in his office and holding my crew hostage demanding they hand over the tape of it all. They didn’t!’ Surely plucky Jon deserves a gong. CURRENTLY on wife No 4 – Jennifer Wade, who is more than 30 years his junior – thrice-divorced comic John Cleese, says of his Monty Python colleagues: ‘Eric Idle has been married 40 years, Michael Palin, 50. Everyone claps when you mention this. I say this is just a failure of imagination.’ THE BBC’s dandified economics editor, Kamal Ahmed, grants an interview to a fashion blog, Fantastic Man, confiding: ‘If I know I have a particularly important interview, or big day, I will plan to make sure I wear my top suit. It’s a navy, light flannel single-button suit made by a British tailor called Marc Wallace (about £500). I would probably wear that with a Margaret Howell tie (up to £110).’ Is stern BBC founder Lord Reith rotating in his casket? HOSTED by Martha Kearney and Sarah Smith yesterday, Today on Radio 4 included a discussion on the difficulties of obtaining IVF treatment. Meanwhile, radio boss James Purnell, invited on to publicise a BBC app, sycophantically hailed ‘the brilliant editorial genius of Today’. Miss Kearney remarked: ‘I won’t make any comments about blowing smoke’ – her discreet abbreviation of the vulgar ‘blowing smoke up your a**e’. PRINCE Andrew’s plan to launch his Pitch@ Palace venture, which helps entrepreneurs, in scary Saudi Arabia is considered unwise. ‘He often doesn’t have much of a clue as to what’s going on in the world,’ suggests a royal source. ‘Whereas Charles and Camilla set off on their Africa odyssey with regional experts in their entourage, Andrew prefers to travel without them.’