The Talibrown's hiring of the City PR whizz Stephen Carter to put the fizz back into his premiership prompted the beery crowd that inhabits Strangers' Bar to trawl its collective memory bank. I've learned that Mr Fix-It is considered an "unemotional technocrat", and thus unlikely to upset the delicate political balance at No 10. When a big cheese in the zany world of advertising, he sported a range of knitted tank tops. That fashion disaster prompted one Labourite to wonder aloud if Stalin has employed Frank Spencer. Yet the loudest gasps were reserved for the claim, from a long-term acquaintance of Carter who just happened to be loitering in the watering hole, that Gordie's great new hope used to be a . . . wait for it . . . Liberal Democrat. Up went the cry: Get Carter!
Sharp-fanged Labour rotties are pondering how to fill a gap in the official life story of that Sgt Bilko lookalike, Nick Robinson (below). Licence-fee payers are told everything about the Beeb's top bod, from the school he attended to how he learned to sail a dinghy. With relations strained between No 10 and broadcasters, attack-dog MPs mutter how the picture is incomplete without the facts about Comrade Robinson's chairing of the Young Tories at the height of Thatcherism. Auntie's reply would make interesting reading.
Shaun "Wooden" Woodward isn't the only bore in cabinet meetings. This column's nugget on the unpaid Ulster viceroy's ramblings prompted a snout to whisper that paperwork acquires a similar interest whenever Mark Bollock-Brown opens his mouth. Missing on holiday when Kenya descended into anarchy, the Africa minister's pearls of wisdom evidently aren't as appreciated as the frequency and length of his contributions suggest he believes.
After the excitement stimulated by another recent item, that Yummy Mummy Sammy Cameron's student monicker was "Snowy", a Tory informant texts to ask if Mrs Toff was in the other Brownies - acquiring the nickname from Brown Owl. Unlikely, I feel, though all snippets welcome. Spats between scribblers are so boring, yet I must take issue with the Independent's silk-penned sketch-writer Simon Carr. He claims proprietorial rights on too-good-to-be-true Dave's rapidly spreading bald patch, boasting he spotted it a year ago. Readers will recall your correspondent first raised this vital issue in 2006.
Asda has bought the one-time People's Party's final capitulation to capitalism. The supermarket chain, owned by ferociously anti-union Wal-Mart, is sponsoring Labour's north regional conference in Sunderland on 8 March. Flat-cappers spluttering into their bitter recall that Asda was ordered, not so long ago, to pay £850,000 compo to workers down the road in Washington, threatened with the sack unless they signed away union rights. Call me old-fashioned, but even in Blair's days wasn't Labour a bit more, well, Waitrose?
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
