Hardcastle

THE White House is lavishly decorated for Christmas. They’ll squeeze as many people as possible through the doors to enjoy to enjoy First Lady Melania’s choice of Trumpesque gaudy. Admission is free. At Buckingham Palace taxpayers and tourists pay £24 entry during an eightweek summer window. Given that the Queen spends little time there now, taking advantage of her absence for six weeks after Christmas and the same over Easter could more than double the £10.3million income, which would help with the £300million-plus renovation bill. WHEN a caller to LBC Radio asked how MPs caught the Speaker’s eye in the Commons, a plummy-voiced listener rang to explain: ‘They hold up their order papers, meaning that disabled MPs can get called too.’ Presenter James O’Brien inquired: ‘Is that (Tory MP) Sir Nicholas Soames?’ The answer was yes. After O’Brien played a pre-recorded round of applause, Soames confessed: ‘I don’t get many of those these days.’ Churchill’s grandson listening to a radio phone-in show? It’s tragic. DAVID Dimbleby, about to retire as presenter of Question Time, doesn’t accept salary-enhancing commercial engagements. His reported successor, Fiona Bruce, pictured, earns up to £15,000 a time as a celebrity hostess. If she is confirmed in the Question Time job – and paid the same as Dimbleby (about £400,000) – is there a danger that such freelance hostessing could reduce QT’s prestige? ASKED about President Emmanuel Macron’s demands for access to British fishing waters, Environment Secretary Michael Gove responds in the Commons: ‘Le Président Français a, à cette occasion, tort.’ Then he translates – ‘the French President is, on this occasion, wrong’ – prompting Speaker Bercow to exclaim: ‘Absolutely stunning… what a dramatic performance by the right honourable gentleman.’ Bercow can’t abide rival show-offs. A BIOGRAPHY of late US politician Wendell Willkie, who persuaded Republican colleagues to back Britain during World War II, says he met Winston Churchill, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and George VI and his daughter Elizabeth ‘who revealed over high tea and scotch their displeasure with the isolationist views of former US ambassador, Joseph Kennedy’. Tea and scotch? Princess Elizabeth was 14. THE Royal Collection took advantage of Black Friday to offload some surplus stock, including unsold merchandise for the Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th anniversary and Harry and Meghan wedding memorabilia. Tactfully they have retained items linked to Charles’s 70th birthday. LEADER of the House Andrea Leadsom’s backing for Theresa May’s Brexit agreement is a boost for the PM. The women have an awkward history. Leadsom withdrew from the 2016 Tory leadership contest shaken by a backlash that greeted her suggestion that being a mother (unlike childless Mrs May) gave her more of a stake in the future.