Spare the Rhodri Labour is boosting Rhodri Morgan's chances of beating the Blairite favourite, Alun Michael, to the post of Welsh Assembly leader. The principality's 25,000 party members are being given the chance to help choose their man, rather than leaving it to subservient local officials, who normally hold one-third of the votes with two-thirds going to MPs and unions. It's odd that Millbank is giving ground to those who don't always follow the party line. Perhaps it's felt that Wales has enough sheep already.

Pulpit politics William Hague acknowledged the almighty falling out between the Tories and the Church of England. In attempting to attract Anglicans back to his fold, he told the General Synod that the basics of Tory policy were rooted in Christianity. Churchgoers? They really are going for the minorities vote this time.

Last hurrah? Hereditary peers showed their determination to go out with a bang by inflicting a historic fourth defeat on the government's European election bill. With only months to go before their voting rights are abolished, they helped repel Labour's plans for closed lists of candidates in next year's elections. With hereditary peers the ultimate in closed lists, this hostility is hard to understand. Or were they just being ironic?

Red top card Plans to sponsor football referees in England have been called offside, as it's currently against the rules. This hasn't stopped the Premier League receiving two unusual offers: first, from an optician, who obviously sees referees as a huge potential market; and also from the News of the World. Maybe the thought of retribution from a Sunday tabloid would have kept Paulo Di Canio in order.

Kiss and tell again Monica Lewinsky has signed a lucrative book and TV deal that should net her enough to pay all her dry-cleaning bills. She's getting into bed (metaphorically speaking) with Princess Diana's biographer, Andrew Morton, to tell all about her liaison with Bill Clinton. Monica's Story will hit the bookstores in February. Maybe the president will get Penny Junor to pen his response.

Still a bit green Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the Paris student riots of 1968, hasn't let age wither his radicalism. Now the French Greens' leading candidate for next year's European parliamentary elections, he's proposed giving official residence papers to all France's illegal immigrants. What our ex-student radicals, like Jack Straw, make of that?

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