Ephraim Hardcastle

HARRY and Meghan’s semi-secret handling of their baby’s arrival will not have pleased the Queen. A stickler for the rules governing royal births she recognises the distinction between unpaid semi-distant family members entitled to privacy and those, like Harry and Meghan, who should allow the public to share the magic as the quid pro quo for funding their luxury lifestyle. Says one source: ‘They want the privacy and then the publicity, controlled by them on social media, something they’ve railed against on so many occasions.’ NIGEL Farage’s much trumpeted friendship with Donald Trump hasn’t prompted the Queen to invite him to the Buckingham Palace banquet. However, their bromance could be rekindled in June when the US President, who, like his hair, doesn’t travel well, plans to arrive a day early. US ambassador Woody Johnson hopes to invite a small group of friends to his official residence, Winfield House in Regent’s Park. But will Farage be dissed twice? LORD Sugar describes Trump as a comedian, tweeting: ‘He is beyond a joke.’ Sugar is clearly still piqued over Trump’s failure to anoint him as his successor on the US version of The Apprentice in 2017, when he begged: ‘Mr President can we bury the hatchet? Please ask NBC to let me do the next series of The Apprentice. You know I can do it.’ LINE of Duty peach Vicky McClure, pictured, unnerves co-star Adrian Dunbar by speed- reading the scripts and texting him: ‘Oh... my... God, you won’t believe what happens to you in episode two!’ Says Dunbar: ‘You start freaking out. “What the hell’s that?” She winds me up.’ JEREMY Paxman tells Australian TV why he voted against Brexit, saying he intended voting Leave ‘because I thought it’s an awful institution, the European union, but it’s all we’ve got… a bit pathetic I suppose’. It’s more than that Paxo – a perfect expression of the Establishment’s morale-sapping ennui in which Brexit is now mired. WRITER Nicholas Shakespeare recalls the late Iris Murdoch fetching up at a Princess Margaret reception in ‘a loose-fitting garment resembling a Sketchley’s laundry bag’. He adds: ‘When I asked Princess Margaret, “Ma’am, would you like to wear an Iris Murdoch dress?”, she snapped, “It’s not Marm; it’s Mam (as in jam).’ SIR Paul McCartney’s former spouse, Heather Mills, canoodles with a bearded fortysomething at the Lola’s cupcakes stand at St Pancras station on Sunday. Says my eyewitness: ‘They were eating cupcakes and then kissing before walking off together arm in arm.’ Surely Heather, a strict vegan, is researching a new range of vegan cupcakes! CURIOUSLY-coiffured Tory MP Michael Fabricant, nostalgically recalls: ‘I worked as a DJ on a pirate radio ship briefly when I was young... I used to get terribly seasick – although reading out something with enthusiasm while feeling sick was, in some ways, good training for being an MP.’