Evidence that plans for a 3 May poll are still in place came in the MPs' weekly whip's notice from Tommy McAvoy's den of brutality. It put backbenchers on alert for a three-line rolling whip from 3.30pm on Monday 2 April until Thursday, presumably to clear the legislative decks. "I've never seen that before," said a grizzled veteran.
Other MPs confirmed that they had been given templates for their election address to send off to the printers. Strangely, they do not mention "new" Labour, nor do they bear a picture of Tony Blair. Millbank, O thou of little faith.
One interesting theory advanced for an election this year rather than next is the Queen's pleasure. HM, it is said, doesn't want an election in 2002 because it might get in the way of her golden jubilee.
Just talk, you know, just talk, but I hear that Blair is so enamoured of Lord Macdonald's performance as transport minister that he would like to give him full secretary of state status after the election. Macdonald would be the first Labour peer to answer for a department in the Upper House, rather than the Commons. Wouldn't that be the ultimate modernisation, as well as the most exquisite put-down to John Prescott, Macdonald's putative boss?
On the eve of his first lunch for the parliamentary press gallery, the Northern Ireland Secretary, John Reid, has shown that he doesn't intend to be a pushover for Sinn Fein, despite being the first Catholic (and the first ex-communist) to hold the job. In a little-noticed interview in the Boston Globe, he dumped on the Shinners for talking while their arms are outside the door. "Actually, he is a unionist, with a small u," says my snout.
To the exhibition of parliamentary statues in the Upper Waiting Hall, only to find a very non-statuesque disagreement going on. Among the metal busts of Fenner Brockway, Donald Soper and Tony Benn, advocates of a memorial to Sylvia Pankhurst are lobbying Tony Banks, chair of the Commons Advisory Committee on Works of Art. They believe he has a secret agenda to site a Rodin statue on the patch of grass provisionally booked for Pankhurst opposite Westminster. The sisterhood is not happy, and understandably so. Banks's committee of cultural hooligans is all-male.
It was a relief to turn to John Cousins, son of the late Frank, leader of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who observed that the bronze of his dad wasn't broad enough about the shoulders. Quite right; the sculptor Ian Walters did the statue from photographs.
Then, would you believe, Banks has the cheek to ask Bill Morris for a loan of the TGWU bust of Ernie Bevin for a vacant plinth in an obscure corner of the House. If statues could only speak!
Have fun with the front cover of Progress, new Labour's propaganda magazine, which shows Blair and Brown staring at each other. Fold the page correctly, and the title reads "Ogres".
Susan Crosland invited all living spouses of ex-premiers to the launch of her novel, The Prime Minister's Wife. None came, though Lady Lamont did turn up, perhaps indicating Norman's lost ambitions. It is a story of "illicit love, violence and treachery" in Downing Street. Nothing new there, then. Blanche, a feisty American, marries a British politician who makes it to the top. Disillusioned, she takes up with his fiercest press critic and breaks "the final taboo". Any parallels with real life?
The election campaign is under way in Hartlepool. Well, going in that direction, anyway. Labour officials decided to hit every house in town with a leaflet extolling the manifold virtues of Peter Mandelson. The Young Fabians put out a national appeal for little helpers to knock on doors, promising a bed for the night and free transport. Alas, just one volunteer has come forward, from foot-and-mouth stricken Devon, 400 miles away. He was advised to stay home.
Paul Routledge is chief political commentator for the Mirror
