Guests turning up for a Tory dinner in a plush Thames-side banqueting suite were confronted by a brusque letter from Labour gatecrashers, demanding the soirée be cancelled. Kevan Jones and John Mann, Westminster's equivalent of the Branscombe Beach scavengers, slipped into the room to leave their calling cards after spotting that the United and Cecil Club was to meet. The pair declared the gathering "strictly forbidden" under rules banning the use of parliamentary facilities to raise dosh for parties, and presented an incriminating menu to the Commons sleaze-buster. But the United and Cecil didn't get where it is today by surrendering to lefties. The blue-blood club carried on, though it beats me why anyone would pay to endure Mystic Mogg of the Times over the dessert.

The Jones-Mann combo then claimed room-booker Greg Hands, a former swimming-pool attendant turned Tory MP via a fortune made in the City, failed to turn up. Perhaps he foresaw how dull Mystic Mogg is, but rules are rules. Sponsors must attend. So in went another complaint as the "Dinner Wars" escalate out of control.

A snout whispered into my shell that the saintly Michael "Mad Mike" Meacher has quit quietly as chair of the grandiosely named Labour Commission, a body he established to restore democracy in the party. Tony Benn's one-time vicar was replaced by the even more saintly Angela Eagle after a "disagreement" (trans: big row) as he considers a grab for the Labour crown. The informant claimed Mad Mike thinks OMOV now means "One Meacher, One Vote". Yet the ex-minister's buttonholing isn't going swimmingly. Accosted, the Hemsworth MP Jon Trickett, a plain-speaking tyke, told a shocked Mad Mike how few people would opt for him, and then sent him on his way.

Slick Dave the Old Etonian has let slip he's chippy about his alma mater. The chap born with a full silver dining service in his mouth confronted mini Labour's Hazel Blears behind the Speaker's Chair after Mrs Pepperpot criticised him for packing his team with more old school ties than blue stockings. "What have you got against my old school?" hissed Slick Dave. How long have you got, Dave?

Praise from Tony Blair proved the kiss of death after a trio of ex-ministers, Janet Anderson, George Howarth and Mike Hall, paid a price for their status as teacher's pets. Rewind to outgoing premier's valedictory conference speech, when he thanked the three for their back-bench support. Then return to the present, where Parliamentary Labour Party comrades dumped them in three of the four bottom places in elections for the parliamentary committee. You know the era is over when it's better to be a rebel than a loyalist.

The plague of mice has spread from newspaper offices on the Press Gallery's "Burma Road" to Clive's Bar, terrorising media rats. The vermin grow bolder and seemingly larger by the day, running over shoes to grab crisps dropped on the floor. Your intrepid correspondent came close to splattering one with an ashtray, but alas his aim was out, though shards of glass from the smashed receptacle might cut a paw and the critter expire from gangrene. It's us versus them, and we're losing.

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