BLACK DOG: Speaker John Bercow - and an annoying drip

Thousands of leaky roofs in schools and hospitals are left unrepaired for months. But a single leaky roof in the Commons’ ornate, glass-ceilinged £235 million Portcullis House complex, where MPs sip lattes and knife each other, has prompted Speaker John Bercow to spend £200,000 of taxpayers’ money merely to find out the cause of the drips, never mind fix it. Much cheaper to buy a large bucket – just as they do in schools and hospitals.

Speaker John Bercow has spent £200,000 of taxpayers' money to find out the cause of a leaky roof in the Commons’ ornate, glass-ceilinged £235 million Portcullis House complex, where MPs sip lattes

Speaker John Bercow has spent £200,000 of taxpayers' money to find out the cause of a leaky roof in the Commons’ ornate, glass-ceilinged £235 million Portcullis House complex, where MPs sip lattes

Sir Nicholas Soames could sue fellow Tory knight Alan Duncan for plagiarism over a joke he delivered at the drink-fuelled Tory ‘away day’ in Oxfordshire. Duncan quipped that Soames is ‘the only man who thinks a selfie is a w***’. But Soames’s pals claim diminutive Duncan stole the gag from him. ‘Nick told it to his son’s friends when they went horse racing and they wet themselves laughing,’ said one. ‘Diddy Duncan should think up his own jokes.’ 

Tory MP John Redwood was so keen to reassure his constituents he was not one of the drunken revellers at the ‘away day’ that he wrote to them to tell them he stayed stone-cold sober. ‘Contrary to reports about MPs, I drank no alcohol. I took part in useful plenary and break-out sessions.’ Humourless Redwood should break out more often.

A Keir advantage... 

Labour chiefs have bent the rules to help suave Leftie Keir Starmer, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, take over the Holborn and St Pancras seat of salt-of-the-earth ex-Health Secretary Frank Dobson, who is retiring. One Shadow Minister, who, unlike Starmer, did not attend private school or go to Oxford, scowled: ‘It’s just what we don’t need to win the Election – another privileged North London intellectual.'

Strait-laced Theresa May had a fit of the giggles during a speech by her Labour opposite number Yvette Cooper on new anti-slavery laws. Cooper kept calling ex-Tory MP for Totnes, Anthony Steen – Britain’s top expert in human trafficking – Mr Totnes. Clearly Cooper didn’t see the man glaring at her close to May in the special Commons pew for ex MPs, Mr Totnes – sorry, Mr Steen – himself.

Crooner Norman hits a bum note 

Not all MPs were impressed by Lib Dem Norman Baker’s decision to resign in a huff as Home Office Minister. Told it would give Mr Baker, left, more time to devote to his hobby as ‘front man’ for his oldies’ rock band, The Reform Club, a Lib Dem colleague scoffed: ‘Norman models himself on Van Morrison, but can’t sing like him.’ 

Resigned: Lib Dem Norman Baker, pictured, said he would now be able to devote more time to his band

Resigned: Lib Dem Norman Baker, pictured, said he would now be able to devote more time to his band

The shortlist for the plum Tory seat of leafy Bury St Edmunds included two of the brightest and trendiest young Conservatives, black London Assembly member James Cleverly and Anglo-Asian social activist Zehra Zaidi. The not-so-trendy Tories of Bury plumped for Mrs Jo Churchill, 50-year-old boss of a Grantham scaffold firm. Being linked to the home town of the Tories’ second-greatest leader and sharing the surname of the greatest takes some beating.