SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Did angry judges snub Justice Secretary Liz Truss over Brexit row?

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Margaret Thatcher was famously snubbed by Oxford University, which refused to offer her an honorary degree in protest against the Government’s cuts in funding for education.

Has Justice Secretary Liz Truss been similarly publicly rebuffed? Truss was due to be made an honorary ‘Bencher’ of Lincoln’s Inn last Thursday, but the ceremony was called off.

Truss, 41, took office in July despite having no legal experience and became the first female Lord Chancellor in the 1,000-year history of the role.

Truss, 41, (pictured)  took office in July despite having no legal experience and became the first female Lord Chancellor in the 1,000-year history of the role

Lincoln’s Inn had a change of heart, I am told, about making her an honorary Bencher after some senior members — the so-called Benchers — protested that Truss didn’t do enough to stand up for the judiciary following this month’s controversial High Court ruling that Theresa May can only trigger the process for leaving the European Union via a vote in Parliament.

The decision of the three judges was roundly condemned by Brexiteers and criticised by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid as ‘frustrating the will of the people’.

‘There was horror particularly among the judges over Liz Truss’s failure to come to the defence of the High Court judges,’ says my man at Lincoln’s Inn.

The Ministry of Justice confirms the ceremony ‘has been postponed’ and says no alternative date has been fixed. When asked why it was put back, a spokesman for Lincoln’s Inn says: ‘The Inn is a private organisation and it is not our policy to comment on such matters.’

Asked subsequently if the honour had been withdrawn, a spokeswoman said that was ‘inaccurate’, but she would not comment on the suggestion that the ceremony had been postponed at the behest of some angry Benchers.

Lincoln’s Inn Benchers are the governing body who have power to call students to the Bar and they can expel any member or disbench one of their own number.

Among its 314 Benchers are Lord Justice Sales , one of the three judges who made this month’s ruling, Cherie Booth QC and Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom .

Lord Neuberger is one of 11 Supreme Court judges who will sit next month to give their verdict on the Government’s appeal against the earlier ruling.

The 3rd Viscount Hailsham spoke in the House of Lords yesterday on the importance of walking to tackle obesity. Doing so, he declared an interest, telling peers that he himself had footpaths over his ‘regrettably modest’ property.

Modest? Really? Before he made it to the Lords, Hailsham was better known as Douglas Hogg, the Tory MP who left the Commons after an expenses stink about moat-dredging at his country pile.

Star Trek actress Alice Eve (pictured) has no problem adapting to the laid-back lifestyle of LA

Shoestring's girl shows sheer style  

Star Trek actress Alice Eve has no problem adapting to the laid-back lifestyle of LA.

The daughter of Shoestring star Trevor Eve was pictured walking her dog, Buddy, in a see-through black lace top that revealed a black bra underneath.

It helps that the 34-year-old, who also appeared to be wearing very little make-up, feels confident in her own skin.

‘In the culture we live in, there’s this pervasive, shared agreement that there’s a certain body type to admire,’ she says, ‘and it isn’t actually based on anything real or substantive.’

But it wasn’t just her upper body attracting attention, as she sported a pair of £580 Stella McCartney platform shoes.

Good to hear that Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has taken on the paternalistic values of his character the Earl of Grantham.

I hear that Lord Fellowes bought a £66 bottle of Virginie T Brut champagne for each adult cast member of the new musical School Of Rock, which he co-wrote with fellow Tory life peer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The glamorous red-and-black bottles have just been launched by the daughter of Claude Taittinger, who has her own grand cru vineyard.

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes (pictured) has taken on the paternalistic values of his character the Earl of Grantham

‘Julian bought 28 bottles but discovered he was two bottles short,’ says my man backstage at the New London Theatre. ‘So his wife, Emma, whizzed off to the warehouse on her bicycle.’

Emma should be used to such demands: she’s lady-in-waiting to the wife of Prince Michael of Kent, Princess Pushy.

 Fry's sudden silence over 'vulgar' Trump

As Britain's best-known liberal luvvie, Stephen Fry used to be outspoken in his criticsm of comb-over king Donald Trump

The QI presenter, 59, once attacked Trump for his ‘poisonously atrocious taste, false glamour, shallow grandeur, [and] cynical vulgarity’. And after a visit to one of of his gaudy properties in 2009, Fry declared that he hoped ‘never to hear Trump’s name again’.

Stephen Fry (pictured) once attacked Trump for his ‘poisonously atrocious taste, false glamour, shallow grandeur, [and] cynical vulgarity’

Curiously, however, the portly polymath, who upped-sticks and moved to Hollywood with his husband, Elliot Spencer, 28, has not breathed a word in public about the billionaire tycoon since Trump won the U.S. election.

Surely it can’t have anything to do with the fact that Fry is desperate to emulate his old comedy partner Hugh Laurie’s success in the hospital drama House with a new CBS sitcom he’s starring in called The Great Indoors?

My man in Los Angeles claims: ‘Fry is desperate not to put off any potential viewers or Republican-supporting studio executives.’

 Twenty-three years after Euro-sceptic Tory MPs rebelled against the Maastricht Treaty, Bill Cash held a reunion lunch at the House of Commons yesterday to celebrate Brexit. ‘What we did at Maastricht was the catalyst for Brexit,’ the veteran MP tells me. Iain Duncan Smith was among those toasting Britain’s vote to leave the EU. ‘It really marked the start of our campaign.’