They are hoping to encourage Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced former Tory cabinet minister, to stand for UKIP in his old constituency, Thanet South. “He still has some good will down here,” says one supporter.

Aitken, jailed in 1999 for perjury and perverting the course of justice, was such a staunch Conservative that he once had the job — unpaid, of course — of being boyfriend to Carol Thatcher. Now he votes UKIP. Earlier this year Aitken expressed interest in representing Thanet South as a Tory, but was rejected by a horrified party HQ.

Will he stand? “It’s far too early to say,” says Aitken. But if he does, nobody will be more delighted than the current Labour MP, Stephen Ladyman. He is defending a 1,700 majority, and he’ll surely find it a lot easier if the Conservative vote is split.

Michael Howard, who stuck by Aitken and visited him in prison, must be thinking some crimes really are unforgivable

Ok, Carey’s not Kilroy ... but he’s a bit of a killjoy

And now, an apology. I was very wrong to refer to George Carey not long ago as the Robert Kilroy-Silk of the Anglican Church. Especially as he is much more like the Church of England’s answer to Edward Heath: sulky, outspoken, and apparently dedicated to making life difficult for his successor. Why else would he have chosen Lambeth Palace for the launch of his memoirs tomorrow evening? Senior bishops, meeting last week in Liverpool, begged Archbishop Rowan Williams to intervene and cancel the event but he said it was too late. Can nobody rid him of this turbulent priest?

• Good news: somebody is planning to make a film about Tony Blair. Bad news: it’s Michael Moore, whose recent film about President Bush and the Iraq war won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. And the way things are going for Blair, Moore will probably get a Treasury grant to make it.

  Queen tells Charles that fundraising is off menu at the palace

  The Queen has ordered Prince Charles to cut back his charity fundraising activities at Buckingham Palace. In previous years the prince has invited wealthy Americans to dinner at the palace in exchange for donations to the US branch of the Prince of Wales Foundation. But palace sources say the Queen has become increasingly uneasy at the thought of Buckingham Palace being turned into a high-class diner. One confidante of the Queen reveals: “She says she doesn’t want the family just to be seen as a fundraising machine.” It hasn’t helped that Charles’s private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, has been boasting of his boss’s fundraising prowess. Now hungry Americans will have to make do with Clarence House or Highgrove.

  Roland White