Wanted: one royal versifier – an interest in trees and homeopathy an advantage | Catherine Bennett

With Carol Ann Duffy bowing out as poet laureate, others are courting the honour

Since he does not read newspapers or subscribe to news outlets, maybe someone could tell Jeremy Wright, the minister responsible for the media and culture, that unofficial applications for the position of poet laureate are already coming in?

With Carol Ann Duffy due, next spring, to complete 10 impressive years as laureate, another accomplished poet, Simon Armitage, Oxford professor of poetry, has ventured to write a full job description and list of relevant qualifications, with which, it emerges, he is supremely well endowed. Others, maybe, not so much.