Carol Ann Duffy set to be first female Poet Laureate

Britain looks likely to have its first female - and first Scottish and first lesbian - Poet Laureate when Andrew Motion steps down this week after his 10-year stint. The job, which has been held in its 341-year history by John Dryden, William Wordsworth and John Betjeman, seems certain to be going to Carol Ann Duffy, a 53-year-old Scot.

According to the Times, she has been offered the post in the past few days but is undecided about whether she will accept it. The Independent claims her name has gone to the Queen for confirmation. This would not happen if the candidate wasn't interested because protocol dictates that a subject should never refuse a request from the sovereign - even if the pay is a measly £5,000 a year.

Duffy was passed over for the job in 1999 following the death in office of Ted Hughes, allegedly because Tony Blair felt the poetry-reading classes were not ready for a lesbian laureate. Apparently upset by the snub, Duffy declared she was "out of the picture" for the laureateship and, just to make her feelings clear, said she would not "write a poem for Edward and Sophie. No self-respecting poet should have to."

But her literary agent Peter Strauss, perhaps sensing that her moment has now come, told the Times he had never heard Duffy speak negatively of the role. "I told her once, years ago, that she would be a brilliant poet laureate," he said. "She just looked at me and smiled."

Many believe she will make a better fist of the job than Motion. While his non-ceremonial work continues to be praised - a new book of private poems, The Cinder Path, has received glowing reviews - his efforts as Laureate, especially a 'rap' to mark Prince William's 21st birthday, have generally met with disdain.

Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society, said Duffy's range was the key. "She can write work that appeals to many different people, not in a lowest common denominator way but because she has so many different registers. There are sunny narrative poems, love poems and her fantastic children's poems."

Just in case Duffy - or the Queen - decides she's not the one, a safe choice is waiting in the wings: Simon Armitage who, like Hughes, is from  Yorkshire stock. ·