Pandora: Ready to rumble!

(REUTERS)

What better way to end this most momentous of weeks than with news of an old-fashioned Tory punch-up on the horizon?

Ladies and gentlemen, standing in a very blue corner indeed, I give you the Chingford Skinhead himself, Lord "The Polecat" Tebbit!

To cut a long story short, Norman has recently started fronting his own website critical-reaction.co.uk, where, it would be safe to assume, he's going to be rather forthright over the coming months. Not only are Tebbit and the gang unlikely to do their new Prime Minister many favours, I'm also assured bayonets are firmly fixed in the direction of their better known and more influential online rival ConservativeHome, run by television-friendly pundit Tim Montgomerie. "Just watch, it's going to get nasty," insists one foot soldier. The new site's editor Graham Stewart suggests in more restrained tones that ConservativeHome should look at its own role in the Tories' recent failure to land a majority. "Are they sure they didn't help kill the patient in the first place?" he pointedly enquires. ConservativeHome is yet to take the bait. Come on, you know you want to!

May gives peace a chance

I'm obliged to send our political leaders the following missive from one Dr Brian May, the astrophysicist perhaps better known as the second-most famous member of Queen. The musician and animal rights campaigner says he will play firm but fair with Cameron and Co. "The temptation is always there to run around with an angry face and preach destruction, but I choose not to," states May. I should stress that he hates being described as "poodle-permed".

* Some have been helpfully quick to detect a melancholy, almost distant look in Hillary Clinton's eyes this week. I'd rather not buy the convenient theory that the US Secretary of State is "a bit busy". I think we all know she's actually missing a certain dashing former foreign secretary, now stuck in Blighty running for the Labour leadership!

* No one has succeeded in driving a stake through Alastair Campbell's heart quite yet. The old drama queen is preparing to publish his diaries "in full" (take that, idiot voters!). Thankfully, there is also talk of reviving his alter-ego, Malcolm Tucker from television's The Thick Of It. Its creator, Armando Iannucci, assures Pandora: "There may still be a life for him out of office."

Bad old days for Clegg and Cameron

Thanks to those of you kind enough to email me past examples of the personal hostility between David Cameron and Nick Clegg prior to this week's Cabinet love-in. My initial favourite was Cameron, once being "overheard" to remark: "I wouldn't work with that annoying minor public school runt in a month of Sundays! For a start, he's a bit better looking than me." Alas, we couldn't quite stand this up.

pandora@independent.co.uk