Ephraim Hardcastle

THE BBC’s election night coverage will be presented for a record tenth time by David Dimbleby, 78, despite promises to award the plum job to Huw Edwards, 55. Edwards will reprise his role presenting the coverage after Dimbleby goes to bed once most of the results are in. He said: ‘I am honoured to be in the presenter’s chair again, combining this with all my daily work on BBC News’. HOUSE Of Cards star Kevin Spacey, pictured, director of The Old Vic theatre from 2003 to 2015, is chosen to host this year’s Tony Awards in New York in June. But he says, modestly: ‘I was second choice for [his 1995 film] Usual Suspects, fourth choice for [1999’s] American Beauty and 15th choice to host this year’s Tony Awards. I think my career is definitely going in the right direction. Maybe I can get shortlisted to host the Oscars, if everyone else turns it down.’ THERESA May has kick-started the longest election campaign in modern political history – 52 days, exceeding the 44 days between John Major’s request for a dissolution and polling day in 1997. Tories trust there will be a better outcome this time. Then it was hoped that a longer campaign would help wear down Tony Blair’s lead in the polls. Conservatives suffered their worst defeat since 1906. THE PM is attacked by Labour propagandist Alastair ‘We don’t do God’ Campbell for bringing her Christian faith into politics, although he organised a particularly egregious example of this during the 2001 campaign. A sweaty Tony Blair stood before a crucifix and a stained glass window in South London, a school choir yodelling an anthem in his honour, called We Are The Children Of The Future. Creepy rubbish, but they got away with it. FOLLOWING my story yesterday about royal bias against women in the Order of the Garter, a source points out that the Princess Royal, pictured, appointed a Lady Companion of the Garter in 1994, rejected the traditional initials ‘LG’ after her name, asking the Queen if she could be KG – a Knight of the Garter – like the chaps. However nonroyal women still must make do with LG. RADIO 4’s increasingly aggressive Today presenter Nick Robinson, 53, gave Theresa May a rough ride during his interview yesterday, sarcastically enquiring, ‘What is it about the recent 20 per cent opinion poll [lead] that first attracted you to the idea of a general election?’ Robinson is always anxious to counter claims from Labour supporters that he’s guilty of pro-Tory bias, as an ex-chairman of the Young Conservatives. RE the election, our William Wordsworth du jour, Pam Ayres, versifies: ‘The shock wave passed / the dust is clearing / Seven weeks electioneering / Rhetoric, hot air and gas / I’m on my way to Dignitas.’