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Mad, staring eyes and rictus grins from the outgoing premier Tony Blair and Ulster viceroy Peter Hain when Rhodri Morgan told a distinctly indelicate story at the Welsh Labour moanathon. Telling his tale behind the closed and supposedly safe doors of a gala dinner at St George's Hotel in Llandudno, the First Minister had Reverend Ian Paisley converting to Catholicism and joining the IRA on his deathbed. "Don't do it," pleaded his family. "Stay loyal to your Protestant faith." "No," thundered the ailing Paisley, "far better a Catholic dies than one of us." My man swears that if looks could kill, Red Rhodri would be dead, and Blair and Hain helping police with their inquiries.
To the New Ambassadors Theatre to see Whipping It Up, a comedy set in a Tory whips' office during the chaotic reign of a Premier Cameron struggling to survive with a majority of three. Richard Wilson - a Labour donor - plays a dastardly chief whip (see Diary) markedly more menacing than kindly Patrick McLoughlin, who occupies the Conservative post. Surprisingly genteel for a former miner, "Mac the Cuddler" is more likely to hug than kick wayward MPs. One laggard summoned for a dressing down was given a cup of tea and sent on his way after a grandfatherly chat, instead of the hairdryer treatment. Good politics, but lousy theatre.
Hilarity in Strangers' at a pompous threat by the right-wing blogger Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, to sue the former defence minister "Tommy Gun" Watson and assorted lefties. Gossipmonger Staines exposed himself as able to dish it out but not take it back over an approach he once made to the BNP. Worried of Cyberspace claims he wrote seeking common ground to expose fascists rather than to sign up, and has issued OTT legal threats to Tommy Gun and any fellow bloggers reprinting a 20-year-old Grauniad story about his youthful activities. Occasional victims of his site are enjoying the squeals of a hunter who so publicly dislikes to be hunted.
The loose talk in Downing Street is of Blair preparing to give both barrels to his former adviser Jon Cruddas. The Dagenham MP's rediscovery of radicalism since leaving No 10 has upset his former line manager, the PM-for-a-little-bit-longer vowing to do all in his power to stop his ex-hireling winning the Labour deputy's tiara. With powerless enemies like Blair, Cruddas can relax.
A bizarre snap reaches me. Taken by a Labour traveller in India, it is of a refreshment stop in Kerala. The London mayor Ken Livingstone's extension of the £8 congestion charge to Notting Hellers has Druggie Dave's mob complaining of class war, yet 4,500 miles away in the communist bastion, the capital one is a hero. So if you find yourself in the port of Cochin, be sure to stop off at the "Ken Livingstone Coffe(e) Shop", complete with outsized sign of a beaming mayor. If Livingstone is run out of London in 2008, he can always apply for a job as a waiter.
Over sandwiches with BBC bosses, Druggie Dave pleaded for his shadow team, particularly William Hague and "Boy" George Osborne, to be given more airtime. He forgot they are called the shadow cabinet for a reason: it's best to keep them somewhere dark to avoid frightening the voters.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor(politics) of the Daily Mirror
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