Ephraim Hardcastle

DESPITE allegations (denied but unresolved) that he bullies colleagues, Speaker John Bercow intends to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, I hear. This isn’t traditional. He was the first Speaker to do so last year. He doesn’t lay it on behalf of MPs. That’s done by party leaders. Most are laid on behalf of nations or organisations. The Queen’s is on behalf of the country. Bercow’s seems to be on behalf of himself and, perhaps, his staff. MOVIE star Michael Douglas, 74, recalls his first meeting with diminutive Hollywood legend Danny DeVito (both pictured): ‘I was on the beach... and this guy walks up to me. He says, “You get high?” We were both 1967 potheads. So we smoked a joint and that was the beginning of a long, long friendship.’ Indiscreet Douglas risks being spanked by his prim Welsh wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones. DAME Joan Collins on Hollywood’s MeToo movement and being a young actress: ‘We were preyed upon by men. I was very good with a knee in the groin, I never allowed myself to be taken advantage of.’ Five-times married Dame Joan adds: ‘I met Marilyn Monroe. She said, “Honey, you better beware of the wolves in Hollywood”. I said, “I can take care of wolves!”’ But who protected the wolves from Joan? FIRST drafts of the Queen’s Christmas message are said to refer to Prince Harry’s wedding. So the monarch’s broadcast may also have to feature the nuptials of her grand-daughter, Princess Eugenie. If so, Sky News – which is producing this year’s Queen’s Message – will have to ask ITV for footage of that event. Like the BBC, Sky snootily declined the Duke of York’s invitation to broadcast his daughter’s wedding. PORTLY SNP Commons spokesman Ian Blackford remarked during the Budget debate: ‘I am just a simple crofter with ten acres.’ Yet Tory MP Greg Hands remembers the MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber as a City slicker colleague, ‘buying and selling financial assets’. Might Blackford be greeted with farmyard noises from MPs when he gets to his trotters at PMQs today? LABOUR-supporting actress Frances Barber, 60, who quit the party last year, says she’s been harassed by Jeremy Corbyn fans. She takes particular exception to The Guardian’s twerpish, in-house Labour propagandist Owen Jones, tweeting: ‘I’ll probably be banned but, before that happens, Owen Jones is a great big c***. Goodbye.’ Comrades, please! IMAGES for the proposed new 50p coin show the date of Brexit Day – 29 March, 2019 – instead of the time-honoured Dei Gratia Regina Fidei Defensor, roughly translated as ‘By the grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith’. Has anyone displayed such lèse-majesté since 1964 when Labour postmaster-general Tony Benn attempted to remove the Queen’s head from our stamps?