Ephraim Hardcastle

CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond was informed two days before the general election that Mrs May’s then chief of staff, Nick Timothy, had decreed that he would be out on his ear on June 9. Hammond’s still in his job and a contender if there’s a No 10 vacancy. Out-of-a-job Timothy was reduced to writing a sorry-for-himself ‘diary’ in The Spectator last week. IN preparation for the dressed-down state opening of Parliament tomorrow, Prince Philip – Colonel of the Grenadier Guards – ditched his uniform for Trooping the Colour. Unlike his son Prince Edward, who managed just 12 weeks with the Royal Marines. He was dressed-up like a Christmas tree in the gaudy outfit of a colonel of the London Regiment. He looked even odder sitting next to his brother, Falklands veteran Prince Andrew, who never wears uniform for the Trooping. MARGARET Thatcher’s biographer Charles Moore says that the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who has just died aged 87, got on ‘famously badly’ with the Iron Lady, adding: ‘She took me aside, as if to tell me a secret, and said, “You know what’s the matter with Helmut Kohl? He’s a German!” ’ No doubt about that. OSCAR-winning former Labour MP Dame Glenda Jackson, pictured in her prime, whose ex-husband Roy Hodges died last week, is refreshingly honest about her divorce. When asked the reason Glenda, 81, replied: ‘ Why do relationships end? The practical reason was that I was sued for divorce on the grounds of adultery and I didn’t contest that because it was true.’ EX-Wimbledon champion John McEnroe, 58, says that, while attending a charity event with fellow tennis stars at Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island resort, ‘a guy I’d never met said to me, “I’ve got four hookers. Are you interested?” ’ Replying that he was happily married, McEnroe adds: ‘He looked at me like, “Why would that mean hookers were out of bounds?” It was that sort of day.’ I am sure Sir Richard would have been horrified. If he’d known. TORY Baroness Brady’s son Paolo, 18, confides on Twitter that he cast his first vote for the Conservatives, declaring: ‘Labour can’t be trusted – too much spending and no security.’ The son of football manager Paul Peschisolido, married to Karren Brady for 22 years, he has changed his Twitter name to The Hon Paolo Pesch. As he’s entitled to do. How grand! DESPITE nearly three decades of television stardom, many admirers of Ant and Dec remain confused over which is which. Not any more. With Ant McPartlin courageously tackling his demons, identification is simple: Ant’s the one in rehab and Dec’s the one who isn’t.