All the gossip from the Westminster village

Who's rocking the boat at No 10?

The fevered talk of Westminster's foreign policy brigade is of fireworks between Barack Obama's vice-president Joe Biden and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. The official US version, endorsed by photographs of a couple of smiling men in matching armchairs, records a chummy tête-à-tête earlier this month in Kabul. That's far from the truth, muttered a well-placed snout. The meeting was short and terse with Biden getting up after just five minutes to protest "I'm not listening to any more of this shit" as Karzai protested about US forces killing his innocent countrymen. The snout whispered Biden's not as nice as Obama looks and the new White House has as little confidence in Karzai as the old.

The ice pick Tory Trot David Davis kept in his Commons office disappeared, I hear, in mysterious circumstances. The climbing equipment-cum-weapon was highly prized by the broken-nosed SAS reservist after it saved him from tumbling over a cliff to his death. The axe vanished around the time Action Man moved offices. Davis is affable until crossed, and the culprits' ears may burn should he track 'em down.

Minister-for-bruising Tony McNulty's hard-man image as Labour's Mr Knuckles is, I gather, for public consumption only. To speak to a Home Office mole is to invite a call from Inspector Knacker, but staff in his old department describe the unemployment minister as a "little poppet" which, he should be reassured, was intended as a compliment. Hopefully McNumpty will remain a little poppet after the disclosure he got only a C, in his government and Politics A-level.

Culture vulture Andy Burnham is worried that a review of telly's "crown jewels" of sports events which are broadcast free-to-view will knock the rugby league final off the list. The MP for rugby-mad Leigh, who would risk an up and under from Lancs and Yorks colleagues so I'm told, let the BBC know it must stay.

The Talibrown answer to Tony Blair's Big Mouth Billy Bass is Rocky the Singing Lobster. The plastic crustacean sits on a cupboard in the Downing Street office occupied by Brown's spinners. It belts out "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" or "Rock The Boat" when a button's pressed. The batteries may last until the election. Spinners activate Rocky when the government announces good news.

With capitalism collapsing, the comrades are raising £1,500 to give Karl Marx's tomb in Highgate Cemetery a wash and brush up. An appeal has opened to repoint, repolish and regild the imposing monument. A rival suggestion is to collect the £1,500 and buy Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland in the old revolutionary's memory and then spend the rest on a party.

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

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