All the gossip from the Westminster Village
The country's most unsuccessful bulimic, 16-stone John "Two Feeds" Prescott, has filleted his fruity language. Labour's one-time second mate, diagnosed with an eating disorder after his wife, Pauline, read a glossy magazine piece about the travails of his lookalikey Diana, is the no-nonsense type who calls a spade a f****** shovel. Yet I gather the former deputy PM, perusing a proof of his memoirs, was surprised by his liberal use of industrial phrases. So out came the self-censor's blue pen to consign curses to the ship's mess and tearoom whence they came. Speculation that Two Feeds is pocketing half a million from his automoan ography is, I also hear, a taxman's dream. The sum is a still generous £220,000, of which £80,000 is going to Hunter Davies - the ghostwriter and my Statesman colleague - who accepted the noble challenge of turning Prezza's expletive England into publishable English.
That Lib Dem sexpot Nick Cleggover is on the prowl. The whisper is that the Sheffield stud is seeking a spin doctor to clean up his triple-X image and sell him as a high-minded politician, after he was Morganed by playful Piers. Your correspondent can't help feeling it'll be more difficult to attract a PR whiz since the muesli-munching Lothario boasted of up to 30 notches on his bedpost.
Before he strapped on Ming Campbell's sock garters and became a Lib Dem great hope, a couple of snouts mumbled that Cleggover's PR vacancy was spurned by a BBC hackette, a Whitehall bod and a Fleet Street executive. Promoting T5 as a hassle-free holiday departure point may be easier now than punting Cleggover as the new Gladstone.
The Rasputin-like figure of John Spellar is on the case of the discarded cabinet minister Charles "I'm Not Bitter" Clarke over his attack on the Kiddies' Secretary, Ed "Stop This Indulgent Nonsense" Balls, in that "he should look at his own performance" letter to the Times. The MP's fury went public when he interrupted a ministerial briefing with lobby hacks to vent his spleen. Spellar, by the way, is an unthawed Cold War warrior. Clarke's jaunt to Castro's Cuba was 30-odd years ago, but is still in the right-winger's little black book.
That Foreign Office chap, David "Brains" Miliband, has come over all Alan Shearer. When the local side South Shields won promotion to the dizzy heights of Division One of the Arngrove Northern League, the town's MP and club president offered numerically illiterate 110 per cent support. If Uncle Gordie fails to raise his game, Miliboy will presumably declare himself over the moon or sick as a parrot when he plays for the Labour championship.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
