Ephraim Hardcastle

FORMeR Tory deputy chairman and best-selling author Jeffrey Archer is offended when iTv’s racy presenter, Susanna ‘i’m dating again’ Reid, 47, asks: ‘So would you put money on Theresa May staying as Conservative Prime Minister?’ Feigning high dudgeon, Archer responds: ‘Yes i would! Get on with it! You lot are trying to fill in hours on television.’ isn’t it time the Tories welcomed back once-disgraced, lady-of-the-night customer Jeffers back into the fold? PLAYBOY memorabilia being auctioned in Los Angeles later this month includes founder Hugh Hefner’s collection of black silk pyjamas – he is pictured wearing a pair – and a Playboy Mansion sign reading Si Non Oscillas Noli Tintinnare – ‘If You Don’t Swing, Don’t Ring’. neWSniGHT’S evan Davis gave George Osborne an easy ride when the nervy former Tory chancellor appeared to defend his political record. Multi-tasker ‘Six Jobs’ George – accused inter alia of sabotaging buy-to-let and iain Duncan Smith’s Universal Credit – is rumoured to be unwilling to go head-to-head with lesssympathetic broadcasters such as Radio 4’s John Humphrys, who (controversially) once quizzed him about ‘welling up’ at Margaret Thatcher’s 2013 funeral. COMMENTATOR Yasmin Alibhai-Brown met a stinging backlash after using the death of Leicester City’s Thai owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter crash to attack ‘white nativist’ bigots. She complains that her detractors ‘think they have the right to abuse and misrepresent me because they are “real” Brits and I am a second-class citizen’. Oxford-educated media darling Yasmin (Linacre College) is far from second class. GeRMAnY’S Der Spiegel magazine says it has discussed the idea of a ‘european constitution’ with english author and former Oxbridge academic A S Byatt, who said: ‘For young countries, like you Germans, constitutions could be very useful. We British don’t need a constitution. We are the oldest democracy in the world.’ They were affronted but doesn’t brainy Antonia have a point? IS Donald Trump so bad? A new book by former Labour foreign secretary David Owen reveals that America’s 36th president, Lyndon B Johnson, lifted a visiting statesman, Lester Pearson, ‘by the lapels of his coat’, and bawled into the Canadian PM’s face: ‘You p***** on my rug!’ Pearson had called for a suspension of bombing in Vietnam. MODeST comedian Stephen Fry, 61, says he feels ‘very proud’ to have played a small part in ireland scrapping its ‘blasphemy’s a crime’ legislation after he caused offence in 2015 by trashing God on a Dublin Tv chat show. He enthuses: ‘it’s another plank in the new ireland with abortion and same-sex marriage.’ We haven’t got round to giving Fry a knighthood. Can the irish make him an honorary senator?