Cooking up radical changes

		By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

As soon as he was given his new job as Commons leader after the last election Robin Cook cast himself as the saviour of the backbenches, the man who would reinstate the power of MPs to hold the government to account.

And he pledged to do what many of his predecessors promised but failed to deliver wholesale reform of the Commons.

Ironically, thanks to the war, he has now been given an unprecedented opportunity to force through genuinely radical changes.

Because of the international crisis, this year's party conferences were cut short and MPs were forced to return to Westminster to get on with more important business.

Mr Cook has the chance to drive through reform

And, believe it or not, many of them actually liked it.

So much so that there is now a growing movement to finally reform the Parliamentary timetable.

There are renewed calls for the Commons to sit for longer during the year with MPs only having a short, one month recess in August.

Party conferences - which, with the exception of the Liberal Democrats, no longer make policy decisions - could be held at any time and even over a four day weekend, for example.

Such changes could also see more nine-to-five sittings and put the entire Commons on a more normal business footing.

Those arguing for the changes believe they would help boost the image of the Commons as a genuinely powerful policy making body.

And that, in turn, would enhance their own positions.

Whether all this talk ever amounts to anything remains to be seen.

But if Mr Cook wants to make his mark in his job, he may never get a better chance.

European dilemma

Now that the Tory party has a committed Eurosceptic as its leader there are fresh moves for its Euro MPs to realign themselves in Brussels.

At the moment the British Tories are loosely allied to the European People's Party in the parliament.

But that body is largely pro the single currency and drastically to the left of Mr Duncan Smith's troops.

There have been previous suggestions that they were planning to cut their ties with the EPP but, with the election of Mr Duncan Smith, those calls have grown stronger.

But it has again raised the possibility that the group, or at least part of it, might ally itself with the more right wing faction in the parliament.

If that happened it would land Mr Duncan Smith with a mammoth headache.

He has pledged to weed out extreme right wingers from his party and would have to decide if and how to discipline his rebels.

Dame Edna II?

William Hague's former spin doctor, Australian Amanda Platell was back in the Commons the other day chatting to MPs and journalists in the Strangers' bar.

There was much teasing about what sort of reward she might expect from her ex-boss in, for example, the next honours list.

One idea that won all round approval was the notion that she should be elevated to the Lords.

Her middle name is Edna and she was clearly amused by the suggestion she could become her country's second Dame Edna.

Flowers

Flowers are put round Mr Blunkett's department

Blind home Secretary David Blunkett impresses all those who meet him with the way he overcomes his disability.

I now lean that one of the tricks he uses to find his way around his new office is his sense of smell.

Different, highly scented flowers are placed in the corridors of the building to help him find his way around.

Mystery insider

Former Labour spin doctor Charlie Whelan was caught out on air the other day when talking about the antics of Stephen Byers' adviser Jo Moore.

He was less than complimentary about her but was swiftly taken to task in an anonymous email.

The only reason he was being nasty about Ms Moore, it was claimed, was because she had beaten him to the job as Labour's chief press officer in 1993.

Charlie declared he had forgotten he had applied for the job.

What fascinated most people though was which Labour insider had sent the email

Sadly missed

News of the death of Ipswich MP Jamie Cann shocked everyone in Westminster last week.

Jamie was one of the MPs I counted as a personal friend and his dry sense of humour and enjoyment in teasing journalists will be hugely missed.