Another property for you, Tony, rich in Labour history . . .

Here is news that may interest Tony “location, location, location” Blair as he expands his property portfolio. The grace-and-favour house in London where David Blunkett wooed his married lover, Kimberly Quinn, is to be sold.

The Home Office wants more than £5m for the former home secretary’s official love-nest in South Eaton Place, which has been empty ever since Blunkett discovered his career was in need of substantial renovation.

Don’t all rush at once, though, because one visitor reports: “It’s a hideous looking building. It’s like a prison – all low ceilings.” Or as an estate agent might prefer: “secure and compact”.

- The art collection at No 10 has been reshuffled since Gordon Brown came to office, aides have revealed. And in what you might think is a cruel twist, one of the new pictures hanging on the wall is a photograph of Tony Blair. I refuse to believe reports that as Gordon looks more haggard, the portrait of Dorian Blair becomes ever younger and fresher.

Cherie counts the cost of not knifing Gordon in her memoirs

Tony Blair is teaching Gordon Brown how to win elections. Or so says Cherie Blair. Yet if the beleaguered prime minister wants marketing tips from a really classy operator, perhaps he should watch Cherie in action instead.

The former prime minister’s wife has written a book about her time in Downing Street. Called Speaking for Myself, it will be serialised this week in The Times and The Sun.

From yesterday’s coverage you might have got the impression that Cherie will be telling all. Yet only last month Atticus revealed that she is leaving out the juiciest bits under pressure from Tony.

“Cherie is desperate to really go for Gordon,” a source close to the Blairs told us. “After all, she was the one that had to listen to Tony, night after night, complaining about what a nightmare Gordon was.” In fact, I can reveal that Cherie has lost £200,000 in serialisation rights because she refuses to plunge the knife into Gordon’s back, let alone twist it.

Mrs Blair, a lifelong Labour supporter, presumably hopes Gordon can repay her by winning the general election. Which now seems about as likely as John Prescott turning down a second helping.

Here’s some free advice for No 10: dump the gurus

The government’s crack team of special advisers will no doubt have noticed over the past couple of weeks that voters are growing weary of high tax and bloated government. Yet where could savings possibly be made?

By a lucky coincidence, it has been revealed that the government is spending more than ever on special advisers. The annual cost is now £6.3m, up 40% in the past three years.

The cost of Gordon Brown’s team has risen by £350,000 to £1.75m, yet what has he got in return for that expensive advice? The lowest support for Labour since records began. Yes, it’s a worry . . . now, how could those government costs be cut?

- The equivalent of a small city has been put up on Britain’s green belt, a report claimed last week. You remember how we laughed when John Prescott said: “The green belt is a Labour achievement – and we’re going to build on it”? Now it looks as if the joke’s on us: it was more of a policy announcement.

- Just because ITV has been sent to the naughty step, let’s not get too carried away about faking it on television. The screens would be almost blank without it. “You think news reporters are talking live from location – until you look out of the window,” admits an ITV insider. “Pitch dark where you are, but he’s bathed in evening light.”

He also recalls how a camera crew got lost in Canterbury, missing the reunion between Archbishop Robert Runcie and Beirut hostage Terry Waite, the late prelate’s special envoy. So they asked if the pair would do it again: “Showbiz people that they were, they did.”

- Roy Hattersley is writing a biography of Liberal David Lloyd George, praised by the former Labour minister as “one of Britain’s most radical premiers”. Lloyd George famously introduced National Insurance under the slogan “ninepence for fourpence” - give four pence, get nine pence back. You can’t help feeling that, if the current lot had been in charge at the time, that slogan would have been reversed.

- Tories in the London assembly were embarrassed to discover last week that BNP member Richard Barnbrook has a desk next to them. So they have fenced him off with pot plants and upturned furniture. If they ignore him, you see, he’ll have to go and play with somebody else.

Times Recommends

• A new kind of western conservatism
• Georgiana is the wrong role model
• Alaska, where cops don't bother you