Word of advice, Ben: get your pots and kettles sorted out
Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, has a wonderful gift for taking aim at the Tories and then shooting himself in the foot.
Musing about the Lisbon treaty, Ben suggests: "If Tories break a 'cast iron promise' in opposition, what would they be like in government?"
Let me see now. They'd be like a government whose 2005 election manifesto promised "we have no plans to privatise the Royal Mail", yet which, once elected, made a botched attempt to privatise the Royal Mail.
As I might have advised once before: ministers in glass governments shouldn't throw stones.
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* * * * * Say what you like about the BBC, but they think of everything. So don't worry if you happen to miss Wednesday's two-minute silence to mark Armistice Day. Listeners will be able to hear the silence again on the BBC's iPlayer service.
The firm smack of government isn't all they're up to
What is to be done about Bottygate, as the slapping of Labour MP Natascha Engel's backside will surely be known to future generations?
Tory grandee Sir Nicholas Winterton cannot remember slapping the bottom in the Commons lunch queue, as is alleged. But perhaps the firm smack of hand against buttock is such a common sound at Westminster that nobody could reasonably be expected to single out one incident.
As accusations flew, Tory Nadine Dorries claimed two Labour MPs had made suggestions to her that - how can we put this? - were not official party policy.
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There is a simple solution. Male MPs with certain urges should heed the (unsolicited) advice once given to MP Paul Flynn. "If you're ever short of a bed-warmer for the night," said a colleague, "linger around the central lobby and engage a stranger in conversation." Flynn, of course, made an excuse and left.
X marks the spot for Gordon's trivial pursuit
Some say Gordon Brown is dithering and indecisive. Not me, though. Because he's at last made a firm and irrevocable policy decision: he says The X Factor twins, John and Edward, are rubbish. There is, of course, the possibility that pressure from Labour MPs might change his mind by, say, Wednesday morning. But last week he was insistent: "I don't think they're very good."
Taking questions on Manchester's Key 103 radio station, he added: "There are some really good people on X Factor. It's really good." This is not the first time Gordon has intervened in an ITV talent show. Earlier this year he phoned to check the health of Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent.
In a separate interview published last week, Gordon Brown said that he prefers The X Factor to Strictly Come Dancing. Oh yes, and he also explained: "I really dislike the trivialisation of politics."
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Rumpy-pumpy vs green and frumpy in Hampstead
An intriguing general election contest is shaping up in Hampstead, where the Green party has just selected journalist Beatrix Campbell to fight Labour's Glenda Jackson. Bea is a rather dour feminist thinker who once wrote an anguished defence in The Guardian of her being appointed an OBE. Glenda, an Oscar-winning actress, is famously the only MP most of us have seen naked. In fact, not only naked but making love to Oliver Reed and crying out "Oh my God, Gerald! Shall I die?" at the height of passion. Roll on polling day.
+ Does Alex Thomson, chief correspondent of Channel 4 news, know that an embarrassing imposter has got hold of his Twitter site? First this so-called Alex Thomson lashed into the McCanns for "abandoning their daughter" and then last Friday he mused: "Funny how in mainstream media Brit troops 'murdered by Taliban'. Yet they never, ever 'murder' Afghans."
An imposter is the only explanation. The real Thomson would surely never be clumsy and insensitive enough to post that sort of thing in the week that an Afghan policeman gunned down five British soldiers, let alone on the eve of Remembrance Sunday?
+ Margaret Hodge, the minister of culture and tourism, is advertising for a diary secretary. "Hours can occasionally be long," says the advert. Work should soon ease up, though. Margaret's ministerial diary is currently looking pretty light after, say, June.
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+ This week's pointless government job is events co-ordinator at the National Policing Improvement Agency, which boasts: "Our purpose is to make a valuable contribution to public safety."
Oddly enough, police forces made a contribution to public safety for many years before the NPIA was established in 2007.
LITTLE BRITAIN
+ Residents of a Surrey town have set up a shrine and a Facebook tribute after a celebrity squirrel was run over. The albino squirrel had lived in St Martin's churchyard, off Dorking High Street, for five years. Lou Gardey, who was among the first on the scene of the accident, said: "We all gave him nuts and food. Now it is as if a little light has gone out."
- BBC Online
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+ A Hampshire councillor has made a video claiming that aliens are secretly walking the planet. Adrian Hicks says an organisation called Majestic, made up of scientists, military officers and politicians, has been tasked with making contact with extra-terrestrials. Earlier this year Hicks claimed that he had a close encounter with an alien in Winchester High Street.
- Southern Daily Echo
+ Tony Blair, Jonathan Ross and Anne Robinson have all been the big names burnt atop the bonfire at Edenbridge's fireworks night. This year they will be joined by Katie Price, aka Jordan. A 25ft effigy of her will be going up in flames. "We hope she doesn't take offence," says event co-ordinator Charles Laver.
- Kent Online