Disturbing tales of a stroppy Prime Minister

Disturbing tales belatedly reach your columnist of a stroppy Tony Blair coming over all Sebastian at 26,000 feet on his flight from the long arm of the law. Our soon-to-retire leader, I'm told, had a hissy fit worthy of Little Britain's cringe-inducing prime ministerial aide. Blair threw his arms in the air, exaggeratedly shook his head, swivelled his eyes and muttered about "those guys" in the press pack. He lost his cool after sceptical scribblers speculated that the timing of his failed pre-Christmas trip to bring peace to the Middle East was, coming so soon after the interview with Inspector Knacker over cash-for-coronets, no coincidence, and owed more to spin than to diplomacy. It was left to Blair's mouthpiece Tom Kelly, no slouch in the theatrics department, to play the dignified role as he walked to the front of the plane with his moaning master.

An SOS to the email boxes of broadcasters from the office of Tim "Ho-Ho" Yeo, feeling neglected as he languishes on the Tory back benches. The genial one-time campaigner against single-parent families - a crusade abandoned after the revelation that our married man had gone back to basics in the John Major era with a councillor not his wife, and so fathered a love child - pleaded for exposure. "Whatever the subject, Tim Yeo will have a comment," promised Ho-Ho's secretary to producers. We hope a researcher for the next programme on parliamentary scandals will ring the ex-minister and ask him about Westminster legovers. Ho-Ho, remember, has a comment, whatever the subject.

Home for Christmas to Tyneside, where in the Shields Gazette the local MP, Mr Green, David "Brains" Miliband, played Mystic Mili for 2007. The foresighted one's prophecy that in May the outgoing premier will change his mind and announce he is staying until 2020 is unlikely to tickle Big Gordie. The incoming premier isn't famed for laughing at his own political prospects, particularly those with a tinge of what may be wishful thinking from a cabinet minister lined up to become one of Big Gordie's campaign managers.

Libido Democrat Lembit Öpik's interpretation of the Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia's hit "Touch My Bum" has triggered rumours among colleagues - undenied, I might add, by the human anagram - that he is to go down on bended knee after a whirlwind romance. Party animal Optic evidently believes his tryst has the power to change public perception of Mogadon Ming's mob after Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes were "outed" last year with other men. Called by a BBC hack when his dumped fiancée Siân Lloyd rained on Optic's new love, the cheeky boy told the startled investigator, "You've got it wrong. There's no row. Surely the story is 'a Lib Dem MP is straight'?"

In a rare display of unity, the rival fraternities that are the Labour and Tory whips' offices have united to produce a club tie. Costing £16 and doubling as a garrotte for rebels, the appropriately black neckwear bears the portcullis insignia and a whip (a skull and crossbones was dismissed as too in-yer-face). Minds turn to what to offer the ladies, the lads remembering that the past three chief whips, including Jacqui Smith, the incumbent, are addressed as Miss Whiplash rather than Mr Whippy. I'll tell you this for nothing, boys: the silk scarf is a naff idea.

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

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