The uneasy return of “Hush Puppy” Ken

Peers-for-hire isn't the only scandal engulfing the House of Cronies. Well-upholstered Digby Jones is, I hear, putting faces out of joint on the cross benches. The place operates like a posh working men's club, the best seats bagged by old-timers who like to doze in a familiar spot. Hence the resentful muttering over the upstart Lord Moans of Goatdom plopping his well-fed frame on the narrow, highly prized front bench. One anguished antique complained that he can fit only one cheek on the red leather when the short-lived Labour minister elbows his way on to the pew.

The disapproving rumble over a rib-tickler from clever clogs Michael Gove underlined ongoing Tory unease at Druggie Dave's reshuffle. The shadow educashon spokesman, who doubles as Cameron's gagmeister for PMQs, upset backbenchers with an after-dinner quip about by-election martyr David Davis and polar explorer Captain Oates both heading off into the wilderness. My claret-quaffing snout spluttered that DD's return would have made it easier to swallow Ken Clarke creeping back in his Hush Puppies.

TV crews despatched to Clarke's London home - to quiz the Comeback OAP about his latest contradiction of Cameron - complain the job is a health hazard. Clouds of cigar smoke envelop reporters, a hackette leaves wheezing after standing too close to his open front door. The early-morning call to leg it round to Clarke's house is greeted in broadcasting circles with a distinct absence of enthusiasm.

The overshadowed chancellor "Boy George" Osborne has lost his zest, according to another Tory informant, since Clarke was dusted down and brought back by Cameron. The cocky Osborne had the nonchalant smile of a hedge-fund investor who'd lost a couple of million and didn't care. The crushed Boy George, my chap in the tweed jacket whispered, wears the pained scowl of a banker who's been bailed out. His relationship with Cameron is so deflated that the one-time bosom buddies no longer cycle together.

No 10 has suffered a prominent defection. Sybil, First Feline of Downing Street, has left the hurly-burly of the credit crunch for a quieter life in the country. A Treasury mandarin swore that Alistair Darling's moggy is in rude health, perhaps shuddering at the memory of how Cherie Blair faced accusations of killing Humphrey until evidence was published to prove he was alive. Sybil was an accomplished mouser, though she never caught the Treasury mole leaking Budget secrets to the Tories.

In the library of Chequers is a book on the house which is frequently left open at a photograph of Maggie Thatcher walking in the grounds with Robert Mugabe. One is an elderly tyrant who ruined their country. The other lives in Harare.

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

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