Westminster Diary

Welcome to the first of our regular round-ups of gossip from the corridors of power.

RED KIM REPENTS

When Gordon Brown sacked senior minister Kim Howells in a thorough clear out of the Foreign Office, he did offer a quantum of solace, in the shape of the chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee - the group of senior parliamentarians who report to the PM on the workings of the security services. But as our Parliamentary correspondent Mark D'Arcy pointed out to him, his personal political history - as a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain who was once nicknamed Kim Il Sung - made him a slightly surprising appointment. Did it not send a frisson of horror through the security establishment? "No. It's worrying isn't it?," says Mr Howells, adding: "I think I have wised up a lot actually. We all lived through these times..."

TABLOID STING

Phil Woolas has been making friends with The Sun this week - praising its readers' grasp of the immigration debate at a CBI conference. But how to describe the fast-talking immigration minister? After the event, The Sun's reporter could be heard toying with the tag "motormouth" to the evident discomfort of Mr Woolas. In the end the paper opted for "outspoken". A lucky escape perhaps...

AND YOUR MIDDLE NAME IS...?

CLASH OF THE TITANS

Remember those scary-sounding Titan prisons Jack Straw had planned? You wouldn't want to be locked up in one of those! Well, it turns out they have been renamed. From now on they will be known by the less worrying moniker "larger prisons". Home Office minister Lord Bach announced the change in the Lords this week, following an impassioned plea from the Bishop of Portsmouth. "In ancient Greek mythology, the Titans were a pretty unsavoury lot," the Bishop told peers. "One of them cut off the unmentionable parts of his father with a sickle, married one of his sisters, swallowed five of his children and finally, along with his siblings, was cast into the dreaded Lake Tartarus". Sounds like they should have been locked up.

HARD ACT TO FOLLOW

Ex-SAS bruiser David Davis recently got back from a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, only to discover that another, even better-known hard man - Sky TV's Ross Kemp - had beaten him to it. But before we get carried away with the idea of the two men squaring up to each other in downtown Kandahar, it turns out the maverick Tory is a fan of Mr Kemp's programme. The edition of Ross Kemp on Gangs from Afghanistan was a good reflection of the situation there, Mr Davis told a Westminster lunch. Afghanistan is big enough for the both of them. Phew. Situation over.

JAMIE FACES A GRILLING

The celebrity chef who is trying to persuade the people of Rotherham to eat more salads will appear before the Commons Health Committee next week. Jamie Oliver tried to revive the art of home cooking in his recent Channel Four series Jamie's Ministry of Food, and next Wednesday he'll be quizzed on the difficulties of preaching his nutritional gospel. The Health Committee's chaired by the Labour MP Kevin Barron, whose patch includes part of Rotherham - and he told Radio Four's Today in Parliament some of his colleagues thought a celebrity appearance would be a gimmick which distracted from their current inquiry into Health Inequalities. Mr Barron disagreed. He argues that MPs have a lot to learn from Oliver - after all, when was the last time a select committee managed to secure an extra £200m funding for a project as the chef did for school dinners?

THE WORLD WOULDN'T LISTEN

Vince Cable may have got all the glory, but he was not the only one warning about grossly inflated stock markets and mounting government debt. Patrick Evershed, president of the The Cities of London and Westminster Conservatives, revealed this week that he spent £70,000 of his own money on adverts warning the world about Gordon Brown's "reckless" handling of the economy. But no one - least of all in his own party - would listen.

MAIL JUNKED

Tory peer Baroness Trumpington revealed her surprisingly frugal wardrobe secrets this week during a debate on the pros and cons of junk mail. "Is he aware that I am entirely dressed by junk mail?," the noble lady cooed across the chamber at Labour peer Lord Brett. "My Lords, there can be no more elegant advertisement for direct mailing and the values of purchasing from it. I cannot add anything to that question," replied Lord Brett. The old smoothie.

THE WRONG TRACK

New Transport Secretary Geoff "son of a railwayman" Hoon proudly informed the transport select committee he regularly travelled to his constituency on Midland Mainline this week. The only trouble is Midland Mainline lost the franchise a year ago. It is now East Midlands Trains.

MYSTERY BLONDE

Lady Thatcher's presence ensured the Bruges Group's 20th anniversary dinner was a memorable night. But not everyone at the Grosvenor House Hotel was impressed. One young doorman looked particularly puzzled as he observed the pomp and circumstance surrounding Lady Thatcher's arrival at the hotel. "Who was that old lady?," he asked a reporter.

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