Nervous glances on the terrace over a letter from Jacqui "Miss Whiplash" Smith threatening to suspend rebellious Labour inmates, reducing the parliamentary committee to the role of rubber stamp. The warning, buried in a bundle of routine papers, prompts fears that the leadership is seeking another George Galloway to, as one champagne socialist puts it, encourager les autres. Topping the list, the balance of opinion says, are the Old Testament prophet Bob Marshall-Andrews and lippy Alan Simpson, unforgiven since he suggested that Nuke Gordon succeeding Dictator Blair was akin to Uday replacing Saddam.

Tearoom gossip turns to a tender moment witnessed in the committee corridor. Busy bee Harriet Harman graciously stopped the Warrington warrior Helen Jones to enquire after her well-being - the constitutional affairs minister having recently discovered a new interest in the welfare of the Labour flock. Alas, Jones was not impressed by her solicitude, and made this clear. "You've not spoken to me the ten years I've been here," is the tearoom version of the sharpish reply she delivered before carrying on. Stepping into the role of deputy leader, even if it turns out that the successful candidate has to be a woman with the initials HH, ain't going to be plain sailing, it seems, for Harriet Harman.

The pink tongue of that blazered tribute to traditional English fayre, Nicholas "Fatty" Soames, hangs out at a summer ball thrown by Vodafone Dave, the brand posing as Tory leader. It was, presumably, the warmth of the evening that left Fatty hot under the collar during a parade of swimsuited Tory totty. Vodafone Dave's scantily clad gels made the much-mocked, T-shirted "DD" girls of David "Basher" Davis in last year's leadership scrap look as modest as nuns. A surprising number of £400 tickets to the bash had been snapped up, reports my chap in the straw boater, by young models recently arrived in the UK from eastern Europe.

Beep! Beep! Seen motoring into the Commons in his silver BMW is rock oldie Greg Knight, drummer in the Commons group MP4, and a man intent on proving that politics really is showbiz for ugly people. What catches the eye is the Tory's personalised number plate - it reads "RT HON", though on close inspection the T is actually a 7. One minister, spotting this as he climbed out of his bog-standard official Vectra, felt a pang of envy. As the Conservatives regroup and revive, the age of conspicuous consumption is returning.

Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror

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