BLACK DOG: Yummy mummy praise from Tristram Hunt

Published: 17:06 EST, 19 October 2013 | Updated: 17:15 EST, 19 October 2013

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Praise: Labour's Tristram Hunt

Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt, who admits his jibe that Michael Gove’s free schools were for ‘yummy mummies’ was ‘stupid’, has heaped praise on the nation’s No 1 ‘yummy mummy’ – the Duchess of Cambridge – and her husband Prince William.

Wearing his hat as TV’s ‘Naked Historian’, constitutional expert Hunt says the couple’s ‘global celebrity status’ is good for Britain.

‘They’re young, photogenic, happy and modern.

He’s dressed in Boden, she’s dressed in God-knows-what. It’s not a bad image for the country.’

Ruthless Tory tycoon Lord Ashcroft cannot conceal his frustration at Cameron and Osborne’s refusal to give him the top ministerial post he craves – and dreams of what might have been if his hero William Hague, who made him a peer, was leader.

Ashcroft sneered at Osborne and Boris Johnson’s ‘performing circus’ round of photo-ops in China, contrasting it with the ‘quiet’ good work of Hague in nearby Korea.

If Hague was PM, Ashcroft would be lording it in the Foreign Office.

Now Bercow's in the sisters' sights

The ‘sisterhood’ of women MPs who helped install Tory Eleanor Laing, pictured, as John Bercow’s deputy have a cunning plan to oust Bercow and put her in his place, making her only the second female ever to be Commons Speaker (Betty Boothroyd was the first).

The cross-party alliance is hoping to dethrone Bercow after the Election – two years before his planned departure.

Or they were until a Tory plotter piped up: ‘Sacking Bercow means he goes straight to the Lords and leaves his plum Buckingham seat for Boris Johnson to jump into.

Do we really want that?’

Iraqi-born self-made millionaire Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, whose father fled Baghdad to escape Saddam Hussein, could be a poster boy for the modern Tory Party.

Yet he missed out in the Conservative reshuffle. One minister explained: ‘If you want a job in this Government, you must be Dave’s drone or George’s bitch; they expect total subservience.

Nadhim is 99 per cent loyal but it’s not enough. A word out of place and you’re dead.’ Zahawi blotted his ‘Cameroon’ copybook by backing a mini-mansion tax and the Lords reform revolt.

Eric's ruff moment

Tory MP Eric Ollerenshaw discovered at a Buckingham Palace bash for MPs that the corgi-loving Queen is not a fan of everything with short hairy legs.

Ollerenshaw hoped to charm the Monarch, saying: ‘My mother used to breed Pekingese, Your Majesty.’
There followed what one witness called a ‘Royal tumbleweed’ moment of icy silence.

‘The word “Pekingese” seemed to provoke a pained expression on the Queen’s face and she moved on,’ said one observer.
‘Poor Eric looked as if he wished he had never mentioned it.’

A UKIP candidate who has called for the introduction of sharia law in the UK faces an even more brutal sanction – Nigel Farage’s vengeance – after posting an explicit picture on Twitter.

The shot, from Halesowen hopeful Dean Perks, shows a naked woman in high heels dragging a man along by his appendage.

Perks, who believes Saudi Arabian-style justice would cut crime, had better not try a similar trick in Riyadh.