Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCE Harry is working at Silverstone race track to create an exhibition centre marking the 70th anniversary of their first grand prix in 2018. Might he be invited to race the ‘reasonably priced car’ on Top Gear? My source comments: ‘He’d increase ratings, be cheaper than Chris Evans and is unlikely to thump the servants.’ CAN outgoing PM David Cameron overcome his dislike for retiring Nigel Farage to recommend him for a peerage? UKIP already enjoys the support of three peers (Barons Pearson and Willoughby de Broke and the 10th Earl of Dartmouth) but they’re all Tory turncoats. FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been invited to stay with the Queen at Balmoral next month. Prince Philip finds her far more congenial than her predecessor, Alex Salmond, it’s believed. The duke is said to have called him Wee Willie Winkie and joked with servants when Salmond left: ‘Have you counted the spoons?’ EX-BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders, 47, is introduced on Radio 4 as ‘chief market strategist for the UK and Europe JP Morgan Asset Management’. Ms Flanders, pictured, left the corporation in 2013 for the £400,000a-year post. Isn’t promoting the American company during regular spots on the BBC attractive Stephanie’s real job? WHO’LL be royal champion of Wales, which faces a Euro semi-final against world class Portugal at Lille tonight? During their historic win over Belgium there, cameras caught King Philippe of the Belgians (wearing a national scarf) and his daughter, Princess Elizabeth, cheering on their team. Of the House of Wales there was no sign. Yet all three Welsh princes – Charles, William and Harry – were in the vicinity earlier for the Somme centenary. As president of the (English) FA, William had attended England’s match against Slovakia. The Queen (as patron of the Football Association of Wales) should have an emissary at tonight’s match, the biggest moment in Welsh footballing history. TORY ex-minister-turned-TV-personality Michael Portillo is still touchy over a biography of him written by Michael Gove and published in 1995 – Michael Portillo: The Future Of The Right. Six copies are offered on Amazon for up to an amazing £147.46. What details does the book contain that would explain its high value? Surely not the story about how students and Fellows at Portillo’s Cambridge college, Peterhouse, ‘were given girls’ names; parties were organised in meadows a little out of town, and cross-dressing was encouraged.’ Portillo says now: ‘I am very busy filming. Goodbye.’ DAME Penelope Wilton – Isobel Crawley from Downton Abbey – is the latest actress to play The Queen, appearing in Steven Spielberg’s movie version of the Roald Dahl story, The BFG. In Downton Abbey she played second fiddle to Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Lady Grantham, who got all the best lines. But Dame Maggie has never played the Queen. Dame Penelope says: ‘I had Her Majesty’s own shoemaker, glove maker and bag maker making my accessories – wonderful!’