If David Blunkett was disappointed by his unglamorous return to the cabinet as work and pensions secretary, there is a consolation. He can keep the grace and favour home that came with his previous job.

The former home secretary was allowed to keep the £3m house in Belgravia, despite resigning because of his affair with Kimberly Quinn, for what Downing Street officials called “security” reasons.

But that explanation looks hollow now as poor old Charles Clarke, who took over from Blunkett, gets no government accommodation at all. Nor is he likely to in the near future. A Downing Street spokesman said the housing allocation would stay the same. “The prime minister can allocate them to whom he thinks fit for security reasons and also to assist the minister to do an effective job.”

Which means former defence secretary Geoff Hoon, now leader of the Commons, keeps his flat in Admiralty Arch, where the neighbours include John Prescott.

And if Prescott finds time is heavy on his hands now some of his duties have been removed, there are probably plenty of little jobs to do at Dorneywood, his official Buckinghamshire estate, which includes a swimming pool.

Conservative new boy kept his Diana past quiet

Philip Dunne, the newly elected Tory MP for Ludlow, has a colourful past. As a young banker in the late 1980s he was touted as love interest for Princess Diana and called Superman by newspapers, who thought he resembled mild-mannered Clark Kent.

He and Diana danced together at parties, but he insisted there was nothing in it and later married a film maker, Domenica Fraser.

Odd that his election material laid great emphasis on his work for South Shropshire district council and his membership of Church Stretton golf club, but completely failed to mention this more glamorous episode in this life.

• Charles Dunstone, co-founder of the Carphone Warehouse, once said he was “extremely unlikely” to donate money to political parties. Yet he was happy to stump up £50,000 for drinks and Twiglets at Labour’s election night party. Matthew Freud, PR man to the stars, also helped pay for the do at the National Portrait Gallery. “It’s the end of the election,” he said. “The party is skint.”

  Best keep your pants on in race to be voice for church

  Labour MP Chris Bryant, once pictured on a gay website wearing nothing but underpants, could soon be representing the Church of England in parliament. The church commissioners have an MP to answer for them in the Commons and since 1997 this has been Middlesbrough MP Sir Stuart Bell. But now church officials wonder whether a change is due. “We all like Stuart,” says a commission source, “but this is clearly not his top priority.” Bryant, a former clergyman, is being mentioned as a possible successor, but so is Northampton North MP Sally Keeble. She is not only a former international development minister but — perhaps more important — has kept her underpants to herself.

  Sad news for amateur singer Catherine Taylor-Dawson, who last week gloried in the dubious achievement of getting one single vote in Cardiff North. Now it seems that another 200 votes for her Vote For Yourself party were mixed into the Liberal Democrat pile by mistake.

  The mystery of the missing vote deepens. John Humphrys, presenter of Radio 4’s Today, was horrified to find on Thursday that somebody had cast a postal vote on his behalf. Now Hammersmith and Fulham council says Humphrys himself applied for the postal ballot then tried to vote in person with it, taking it at first to the wrong west London polling station. “I am seething about the council’s cock-eyed version,” says Humphrys, who must now interview himself to get at the truth, interrupting himself frequently before cutting himself off to fit in Thought for the Day.