George Osborne v Alan Johnson is billed as Toff v Tough, but the rivals have one thing in common: both are sons of decorators. Johnson's dad was a painter and decorator who left home when the shadow chancellor was eight. And the baronet papa of the future Sir George founded Osborne & Little, an upmarket purveyor of wallpaper. MPs on both sides agree that what counts most is who gets a - wait for it - pasting on Cuts Day, 20 October.

I hear that the cutters Francis Maude and Philip Green didn't enjoy doing business. A snout mutters that Maude, a millionaire banker-turned-Cabinet Office slasher, thought the Bhs boss too brash. Green, the billionaire shopkeeper, resented, when he barked "Jump!", Maude's refusal to ask: "How high?" Things were so bad, says the snout, Maude threatened to start shopping at Marks & Spencer, a chain Green failed to buy more than once.

Never let it be said this column doesn't get results. After we reported that the Guardian's Steve Bell was banned from adding the teat when drawing cartoons of Cameron with a condom on his head, the editor, Alan Rusbridger, tweeted that he'd relented. Dave's not so much a ConDem as a complete condom.

Feisty Mary Creagh's triumph in the shadow cabinet elections and the return of the ITV1 series Whitechapel, about East End violence, remind your correspondent how Michael Martin, when speaker of the Commons, mispronounced her name, calling her "Cree-agh!" as
if he'd stubbed a toe. He finally got it right after Stephen Pound, the Ealing lip, whispered that it sounds like "Kray".

Unlike Citizen Dave (see last week), Ed Miliband isn't reaching for the bottle. Team Ed welcomes grey flecks on the Labour leader's barnet as added gravitas.

They were Milibabes in the Mail, Mili's Fillies in the Sun: Ed's Girl Army walks in the shadow of the Blair Babes. Gloria De Piero has a First and
a Master's, but her looks not brains currently excite meeja comment. The one-time breakfast telly starlet is weary of the tag "glamorous former GMTV political journalist". A Labour sister suggests that De Piero be thankful papers aren't referring to her as "the former glamorous GMTV political journalist".

Has the wisecracking Alan "Pick Up a Primer on Economics for Beginners" Johnson suffered a Liam "There's No Money Left" Byrne moment? Jon Sopel, the cheeky BBC presenter, presented Ed Miliband with a copy of Economics Explained for AJ on BBC1's Politics Show. It could've been worse. The Beeb considered giving Economics for Dummies until wise heads ruled that too provocative.

Confession corner: Osborne & Little wallpaper hangs in our toilet. My wife bought it secretly to avoid a veto. When Sir George found out, the Chancellor said he hoped I'd be reassured a few pence profit went to him. I wasn't. I don't mind, however, AJ's former comrades delivering my post. l

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