MP goes through many motions

A busy first day back at school for Derek Conway, the family-orientated independent Conservative MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup.

Back from his ten-day suspension from the House of Commons, Conway’s name already appears on a remarkable 61 early day motions.

“Aha!” we hear you cry. “Do you get paid for signing them?” Alas, you do not. Still, we note with interest that his new interests include autism, cannabis, the Iraqi Women’s League, the racist abuse of Lewis Hamilton, the tenth anniversary of the Angel of the North, Tanzania and bingo, to name but a very few.

Inside Westminster, opinion is divided as to whether Conway is a) belatedly currying favour among fellow MPs, or, b) trying to justify the £432 he claimed last year for centrally purchased stationery.

— Is he playing air guitar? Is he saying, "Get off one's land, or one will do you with one's shovel"? He is not, in fact, above is the Prince of Wales at the opening of an affordable rural house scheme at Springwell Hill, Oxfordshire, which aims to involve the private sector in the provision of affordable housing.

— Fresh into his new job at Work and Pensions, James Purnell confesses to some nostalgia for his brief stint as Culture Secretary. He tells Arena: “It was only seven months, we could have been to some more gigs . . .”

Not that he would necessarily have been allowed in. He tells the magazine of having been refused entry to a nightclub in his Greater Manchester constituency because he was, like a true scruffy Londoner, wearing trainers.

“I was the minister for licensing at the time,” he says. “But I couldn’t very well say, ‘Do you know who I am?’. So we went to another pub and did what I think is called ‘the train’, where I stood in the middle of the people with proper shoes and we all went in really fast and hoped they wouldn’t notice.”

— The big tent gets even bigger. Dave Rowntree (the drummer from Blur) has been selected as Labour’s candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster. Already he has been called in to join Gordon Brown in an unwatchably dull video to plug the Government’s creative industries strategy. Rowntree is up against a Tory majority of just over 8,000, so it could be the closest he gets to power.

— Matt Damon is to appear in yet another Bourne film. Variety reports that he is working with Paul Greengrass (director of the last two) on a fourth film to be set in Iraq. “I think we’ve ridden that horse as far as we can,” said Damon, after the opening of the last one. Amazing what you can do with a good flogging.

— Contrary to rumours, Robert Carlyle will not be taking over the role of Doctor Who from David Tennant. “Nobody has been in touch with me about Doctor Who,” he tells Radio Times.

He has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Napier University in Edinburgh, which is similar. Sort of.

— Daniel Radcliffe has bought a second flat in Manhattan. The 2,450 square footer, enjoying harbour views, comes with a 500-bottle wine cellar. Radcliffe is only 18, which is three years below the US drinking age. Classy touch, all the same.

— Sir George Martin, the Beatles’ producer, has apologised to Pete Best, the drummer replaced by (the, cough, still unknighted) Ringo Starr. It was Sir George who, just before the band became big, decided to replace the drums on Love Me Do with those of a session musician. “I felt guilty,” he tells a Beatles fansite. “Maybe I was the catalyst that had changed his life.”

—People stories normally adhere to the highest possible standards of accuracy. This one, though, we got from a cabbie. “I had that X [a blonde, famously self-publicising breakfast TV presenter] in my cab the other day,” he said. “Nattering away on the phone. Claiming she had woken up to find all these paparazzi outside her house. Rubbish. I had just picked her up. There weren’t any.”

Postscript

“I’m very ordinary,” Jane Birkin assures The Toronto Star. “At home in Paris I cross the road to the park in my pyjamas to walk my dogs. I do my own grocery shopping in the afternoon. I don’t live a star’s life.” To clarify she adds: “I avoid flash places. I didn’t have gangs of paparazzi following me.” Understood: you’re a normal lady.

— More modesty, from Delia Smith. “With me there’s no razzmatazz, no entertainment,” she tells Saga Magazine. “I’m just a good old homely cook. That’s all I am.” Hmm.

— “I was a real daddy’s girl,” Cilla Black tells Yours magazine. “I grew up with three brothers. I have three sons. I entered the male-dominated pop music business when I was still in my teens. At a party I don’t want to be sitting around with a group of women talking about my hysterectomy. I want to be standing around with the men sharing the latest risqué joke.”

— “There is no hope,” blogs Brian May. “Money is what counts, the suffering of our fellow creatures apparently means nothing. We are still in the Dark Ages. Barbaric. Despicable.” He is talking about Scottish conservation policy not, disappointingly, the second instalment of his and Ben Elton’s musical, We Will Rock You.

— A beaming Amy Winehouse was spotted yesterday on the way to visit her husband Blake Fielder-Civil in prison. And if she wasn't smiling about that, maybe it was her own summons to a court for possession of marijuana in Norway last year. Perhaps.

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