It seems you’d be wrong. After the Government’s drubbing at last month’s local elections (in which Prescott was not uninvolved) you may recall that Blair ordered Hazel Blears to take a “radical view” as to how the Labour Party might be reorganised to avoid a repeat.

Yet, at a National Executive Committee meeting on May 23, Prezza wasn’t having it.

“John Prescott argued that while the Prime Minister could legitimately set goals for most ministers, party organisation was the responsibility of the NEC,” writes Ann Black, a committee member, on her perhaps excessively transparent website.

That’s gratitude for you. And he hadn’t even lost his house, yet.

• Chris Moyles, the larger-than-life (indeed, larger than most things) Radio 1 DJ is evidently at the cusp of linguistic innovation. As you may have read on these pages yesterday, BBC governors accept that when he said: “I don’t want that ring-tone, it’s gay”, he was merely in step with the evolution of that word in youth culture, where “gay” now means “rubbish”.
  Such is the exciting fluidity of English. In honour of this process, we invite your suggestions for what “moyles” should mean, hereafter. Eg: “The meeting was moyles” or “Is that moyles on your shirt?” No gay ones please, to people@thetimes.co.uk
  
  
• A fitting revenge for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, after all the hounding by America’s celebrity magazines, when they offered pictures of their baby, Shiloh, for sale by charity auction. On Saturday, all the magazine editors were called to the offices of a photo agency in New York and shepherded into separate little offices. It was nearly midnight before they were shown the pictures and they only had until 6am to make their bids. The US winner was People (not us) who forked out $4.1 million. But all of the cloak and dagger could have been for naught. Pictures of the happy family have apparently been leaked on the web.
  
  
• To Goodwood, for the unveiling of the refurbished Kennels clubhouse, after a journey on the Orient Express.
  
  Launched with a shock-and-awe ceremony featuring fireworks and a loop-the-looping Spitfire, the Kennels will act as a centrepoint to the estate’s sporting activities, especially its growing band of golfers.

  Perhaps strangely, Lord March, whose family owns the estate, won’t be among the latter.

  “I haven’t really taken to golf at all,” he admitted to us, out of the corner of his mouth. “I should probably have another go.”

• Sunday, and Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats’ smallest MP, is canvassing in Bromley . . .
  
  ST Hello! I’m calling on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Who will you be voting for?

  Man Who do you think?

  ST I don’t know.

  Man You’re not very observant are you?

  ST (Scanning windows for posters) Aren’t I? Who?

  Man Can’t you guess?

  ST (A touch desperately) Should I take the lead from a blue shirt?

  Man Oh for God’s sake. (SLAM)

  Few do recognise John Spellar, the Labour MP for Warley. Even at his home, in Kent.

  PS

  The web is running out of sensible domain names. What to do? Some follow what we shall call The Tom Cruise Principle. Give your new brand, sorry child, an unusual name and register it quick. The actress has purchased 24 domain names for Shiloh Nouvel. The alternative is to invent a nonsensical new word. “OOKL” is “a new way of looking”, the Department for Culture informed us yesterday, and the title of www.ookl.org.uk, its new educational website.

• Heather Mills McCartney may bare all on Larry King Live, a US talk show, according to a New York Post columnist. She has been on the show before, and this has reportedly given Larry King the edge in the international bidding war. Viewers may soon hear “her side of the story”: marriage, the break-up, the allegations of a picture-based guidebook for lovers. Perhaps Sir Paul’s lawyers should offer her a more attractive package.
  
  
• What has become of Damon Albarn’s front tooth? People has ascertained that it is not in his mouth, and was wondering whether it was scheduled to reappear at a later date, like a hidden track after an album. “He still has the tooth,” a source tells us. “He just has not got round to seeing a dentist.”

  people@thetimes.co.uk

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