It was The Tablet wot won it! Tony Blair owes his election win to the Catholic vote, according to a poll commissioned by the influential church newspaper. Without 53% of Catholic voters supporting him, the prime minister would have lost his popular mandate.

“Britain’s tilted electoral system would probably still have delivered Labour an overall majority,” says Bob Worcester of Mori, “but questions about the democratic legitimacy of Tony Blair’s hold on power would be much stronger.

“As a group Catholics are among Labour’s strongest supporters. Had only Catholics voted, the third Labour landslide would have been of monumental proportions.”

Cherie Blair is a staunch Catholic, Tony halfway there. And could this explain the prominent role played during the election by Ruth Kelly, a Catholic linked to Opus Dei? Despite performances on the Today programme that would see any other minister led away by burly officials from the whips’ office, she was pushed to the forefront of the campaign.

As for the Church of England, the poll shows its worshippers are no longer the Tory party at prayer. Only 44% of Anglicans vote Tory.

With cronies like these, who needs enemies. It’s just a year since David Puttnam urged his old chum Tony Blair to resign. And now, spotting that the prime minister has taken absolutely no notice, the film director and peer has turned his attention to parliament. He is chairman of a committee that accuses parliament of failing to connect with the public (they need a committee to tell us this?). Puttnam is urging parliament to be more media-friendly, more open to young people and to break the stranglehold of the party machines.

But is parliament quite ready to take advice on presentation from a committee called, less than snappily, the Hansard Society Commission on the Communication of Parliamentary Democracy?

oA bright future is in store for Ed Vaizey, newly elected Tory MP for Wantage. He has immediately grasped the purpose of parliament: a platform to get re-elected. One of his first acts was to table a tiresome motion congratulating his local football team, Didcot Town, on winning the FA vase

Red Derek likes his fish and chips in grand style

Derek Simpson, who now runs the Amicus manufacturing workers union, clearly believes in Nye Bevan’s old dictum that nothing is too good for the working classes. But the former communist, who calls himself a lieutenant of the left, doesn’t quite have Bevan’s style. For the union’s annual conference in Brighton last week, “Red” Derek needed accommodation that was appropriate to his status. So he and his team booked a suite of rooms at the Grand hotel. They even made sure that a particular brand of room service was available, 24 hours a day. And what was it that Derek wanted so desperately? Champagne? Finest workers’ claret? No, it was humble fish and chips. A man who clearly knows his plaice.

• Is this yet more evidence of European Union influence? News reports last week said that a clearing "the size of Belgium" has been made in the Amazon rainforest. Whatever happened to the previous semi-official measure of disappearing rainforest: areas the size of Wales?

• Tory MPs Andrew Rosindell and Sir Nicholas Winterton are both built of solid roast beef (with the merest hint of Yorkshire pudding in the case of Sir Nicholas). So it’s no surprise to find their names at the head of a Commons motion demanding the return of the national anthem at close-down on BBC1. The motion is gathering cross-party support, but this is a matter that is especially close to the hearts of anti-modernising Tories. For many older members, standing up for the national anthem is the only exercise they get.

• The Red Lion pub in Whitehall is popular with oversexed young parliamentary researchers (isn’t that a tautology?). One of them was recently overheard deploying the chat-up line: “If you come out with me, I’ll introduce you to the prime minister.” A slice of cheddar to any reader who can supply Atticus with a political seduction technique that is cheesier.

• If you have tears, prepare to shed them now for poor dejected Brian Cotter, the recently defeated Lib Dem MP for the cheery seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. He complained ruefully: “There aren’t many jobs in life where one minute you are in post and then you are not.” Welcome to the outside world, Brian, where I’m afraid you’ll find that nearly all jobs are like that. Unlike MPs, though, the rest of us won’t be pocketing nearly £30,000 as a “resettlement grant” to help us on our way.