Tough Dave is suffering a broken heart, pining for a blonde bombshell who coldly ditched him for a leader with better prospects. The traitor isn't mophead Boris Johnson, though he's capable of such cruelty, but that airhead, Mariella Frostrup (below). Over drinks with scribblers in Blackpool's Imperial Hotel, Cameron wistfully confessed his hurt on watching Frostrup give Gordon Brown the feather-duster treatment at Labour's love-in. "We used to wave to each other in the street," snuffled Cameron, "but now she's gone over to Gordon. I thought we were friends." You were friends, Dave, but he's Father of the Nation and you're leader of a political sect.

Yummy mummy Sammy Cameron's showing promising signs of succeeding Cherie Blair as a gaffe lady. Word reaches me of how she groaned at a dinner that being in politics meant they had to send their kids to state instead of public schools. She could always vote Labour. And that Middle England smile of hers conceals an industrial tongue. A spectator was surprised to overhear an "I'm so fucking pissed off" in a Notting Hell voice when TV cameras pursued her at a kickabout between MPs and hacks. Maybe she learned such talk when living in Scunthorpe, although I recall it was a baronial manor rather than a council house.

Uncle Gordie's trysts with the Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre, have upset the Tories, with the rag banished to the back of the Blackpool press room near the car park. Only News International and the Torygraph are now spun in the blue-carpeted posh seats. Cameron wasn't pleased to be greeted by your correspondent on Andy Marr's Sunday sofa, complaining it was squashed when I was seated next to him, so I got banished to a chair. Nor was he happy to see my fellow newspaper reviewer, the one-time Tory spinner Amanda Platell. I interpreted his off-camera quip that he'd like to see cuts at the Mail as a hope the hackette's popular, if delightfully vicious, column will cease to torment him. Fat chance, even if he's lost weight.

Slaphead William Hague looked a little too pleased with himself when a band of York University students bounded up to him at the Yorkshire reception. "We're such great fans we've named a competition after you," gushed a young Tory. "Oooh, what's that?" inquired a beaming Hague. "It's the 14 pints challenge. We call it doing the Hague."

Which Sky correspondent confessed to fellow lobby hacks in Blackpool that he'd been nude sleepwalking? This must be a first among conference ailments. Even more intriguing is the identity of the TV reporter accused of weeing in a Bournemouth lift during Labour's shindig. The broadcasting term "two-way" gained a new meaning when the doors opened and an outraged NEC member, Harriet Yeo, was greeted by a stream of semi-consciousness. Police officers were called but the culprit had stumbled off. I have a description - and my suspicions.

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

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