HardcastleEphraim

MIGHT the Queen be employing Ukip supporters? A ‘Vote Ukip’ poster has been seen in the environs of Buckingham Palace. HM doesn’t vote but members of her household do. Perhaps some think patriotic Ukip will be more supportive of the monarchy than other parties. My source says: ‘Maybe, but some Ukip members might resent helping out the descendants of Germans who came over here and took our royal jobs.’ THE Duke of Gloucester is evidently in greater public demand since overseeing the Richard III reburial. Today he’s in Peacehaven, East Sussex, inspecting a commode factory prior to visiting a sewage facility. Lest this lowers the spirits of the self-effacing duke, the day also includes a visit to the Samaritans. NICKNAMED Lady Magnesia Freelove by Private Eye, historian Lady Antonia Fraser, 82, was asked by arts broadcaster Mark Lawson at a luncheon yesterday why there is a 21year-gap (1950s to 1970s) not covered in her memoirs, Must You Go? (2010) and My History (2015). Has Lady Antonia, pictured in her prime, kept the juiciest details from us? She told Lawson: ‘Why don’t you persuade my publisher (George Weidenfeld, a former employer and admirer) to offer me £2million to write about that…’ SALMAN Rushdie, in his tribute to Nobel Prize-winning German writer Gunter Grass, who has died aged 87, says: ‘He could waltz, polka, foxtrot, tango, and gavotte, and it seemed that all the most beautiful girls in Germany were lining up to dance with him.’ Ist nicht das Leben grossartig? (Isn’t life grand?) CHANNEL 4’s lanky leftie Jon Snow enjoyed his encounters with Margaret Thatcher, boasting in an interview: ‘You would walk in at two o’clock in the morning and there she’d be with a glass of whisky saying, “Oh, Jon, how perfectly lovely to see you.” Then you’d realise there was (press officer) Bernard Ingham looking over her shoulder and whispering, “Jon Snow, Channel 4, Prime Minister – frightful bastard.” Then she would kick me around the room, every question a disaster. I did her about 20 times and the score was Thatcher 20, Snow nil.’ Remembering the sound made by her tights as she crossed her legs, he sighs: ‘She was the sexiest matron I ever met.’ Steady! DOES Maureen Lipman hope Ed Miliband will ‘reach out’ to her? The 68-year-old actress says in Yours magazine: ‘The election is imminent and I don’t know who to vote for…’ Ms Lipman invited Miliband to a Shabbat dinner. He ‘expressed enthusiasm’ but didn’t get back in touch. Two days later, she says, ‘he was all over the papers, knocking back a bacon sandwich’. Oy vey! THE Guardian has lost its place as the BBC’s favourite newspaper. New annual figures released by the Corporation say that position is held by… the (60p) Daily Mail. However, the BBC paid more to buy 45,672 (£1.60) Guardians in 2014 (£63,061) than 78,463 Mails (£40,482).