Mr Quiffy and the shoe Crewe - all the gossip from the Westminster Village

Counting a chicken before the egg hatches, or 20-20 foresight? This column was written before London trotted off to the polls but, mumbled an informant, a confident Druggie Dave had already opened discussions on who would succeed his Bullingdon Club chum Bonking Boris in Henley. Uncle Gordie, meanwhile, has turned to a Scot with a Brummie seat in his own next test. Steve McCabe, a softly spoken whip with the killer instinct, is to run the Crewe by-election. The Tory challenger Edward Timpson, of the shoe-chain fame, should buy a tin hat. Labour is seeking a horny-handed son of toil who sweated in the town's old Rolls-Royce factory to follow Gwyneth Dunwoody. The unsubtle message will be that wealthy Timpson could afford to buy one of the swanky motors. Make that a chauffeur's cap.

Division bells trigger a fancy-dress parade away from the prying eyes of the public, with MPs resembling some of the Village People. Hon and Rt Hon members summoned from offices routinely wear slippers, Tory grandees sport penguin suits when temporarily abandoning banqueting suites, and an over-refreshed MP once backed anti-terror laws in a Viking helmet, complete with plastic horns.

When the Lib Dem fitness freak Greg Mulholland trotted in to the lobby to deliver his considered verdict on the Budget, Muljogger's gym kit betrayed the unmistakable aroma of exercise. A 7Up logo on the MP's T-shirt caught the eye of the Labour lip Stephen "Mr Punch" Pound. "Are you," boomed Mr Punch, "a young Nick Cleggover?" Muljogger's response, observed my snout, resembled a can of fizzy pop opened after a violent shake.
The No 10 whisper is of how Alan "Mr Quiffy" Johnson rejected an uncunning plan by the Supreme Leader's newest consigliere, Stephen Carter, to anoint the Health Secretary as deputy prime minister. Perhaps the well-groomed mod couldn't take seriously a plot devised by a string-puller fighting a one-man war to rescue the tank top from Frank Spencer. Or maybe Mr Quiffy realised that Hattie Harperson and Jack "The Lad" Straw would kill for the post.

Spied in Westminster for the first time since his dismissal over the Geordie weirdo David Abrahams's multiple personalities was Peter "Low" Watt, invited to the unveiling of Tony Blair's ghostly portrait. With Low Watt tipped to face no police charges and his would-be successor Pitt the Later's cold feet over becoming general secretary developing into frostbite, talk is heard of offering the party's Dreyfus his old job back. Once bitten, twice shy, would be my advice.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror

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