Just as the way looked clear for Gordon Brown to draw up the seating plan for his coronation as Labour leader, John Reid is hinting that he’s not given up on the crown.

The home secretary today launches an attack on David Cameron’s so-called hug-a-hoodie policies in a very personal style, giving Labour MPs a taste of what he could bring to the party leadership.

“The dividing line between David Cameron and me now seems clear,” he tells a newspaper. “Tough love with Labour or ‘just love’ with the Tories. Of course we need to understand why crime occurs, and tackle the causes. But anyone who thinks that tackling crime, including youth crime, can be delivered by more love and hugs alone is wide of the mark.

“David Cameron’s All You Need Is Love approach is not only wrong: it can be downright dangerous.”

The timing of this outburst is particularly significant, coming days after the education secretary, Alan Johnson, ruled himself out of any leadership challenge.

As Reid likes Beatles references so much, Atticus ventures that The Ballad of John and Gordo could be the theme tune for the forthcoming Labour leadership battle . . .

Greeny Monbiot drives a car through the eco lobby

The green lobby must be reeling, although being careful to conserve energy as it does so. In the past few weeks we’ve discovered that environment secretary David Miliband doesn’t recycle properly and that George Monbiot, the Private Frazer of climate change, has been living in a badly insulated house.

Now perhaps comes the hardest blow of all — Monbiot is thinking of buying a car. He and his wife Angharad are moving to an eco-friendly home in Wales, but it’s in the back of beyond with little public transport. Interviewed for the Home section in today’s Sunday Times, he is apologetic and promises: “It will be a very small one.” Has he never heard of a pony and trap?

• Excitable royal gossips last week suggested that bone cancer was the real reason behind the Queen’s bad back, but palace officials are snorting at this idea. They are treating it as seriously as another popular theory — that Her Majesty pulled a muscle while bending over to shake hands with Ronnie Corbett.

  Hawking fans herald whole universe of trouble for his assistant

  When Professor Stephen Hawking isn’t enjoying the lap dancers at Stringfellows nightclub, he likes to unwind by contemplating the origins of the universe. But there’ll be no such relaxing for the lucky graduate who will shortly become his new assistant.

  Previous holders of the post, advertised earlier this year, have been speaking about their experiences to The Times Higher Education Supplement. The author of A Brief History of Time is demanding but a good boss: it’s his fans that are the trouble. “Quite a few weird people ring Stephen up,” recalls former assistant Simon Bill. “I got people from California saying they’d discovered black holes in their bathroom.”