Andy McSmith's Diary: The time Cecil Parkinson put his hand in his pocket

The former Conservative chairman has died at the age of 84

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Conservative Party Chairman Cecil Parkinson wave from party headquarters after their election victory in 1983 (Corbis)

Cecil Parkinson, whose death was reported on Monday, was nervous the first time that he spoke in the Commons after being forced to resign in 1983 over his affair with Sara Keays.

He steadied himself by burying one hand in a pocket and as he was getting into his stride Dennis Skinner shouted: “Stop w***ing!”

Afterwards, Parkinson complained to a friend that he did not know what to do: removing his hand from his pocket might be taken as an admission that he was playing with himself, while if he left it in, they might think he was still doing it.

A Rose by any other name

The businessman Stuart Rose was making a decent job of arguing for Britain to stay in the EU – except for one detail: he does not seem to know what organisation he is supposed to be fronting. Asked to introduce himself at the start of a Sky News interview, the former Marks & Spencer boss announced: “Stuart Rose and I’m the chairman of Ocado, I’m chairman of – sorry – of Stay in Britain, Better in Britain campaign.”

That was embarrassing, but he laughed it off and said: “Right, start again.” But his next attempt was no great improvement: “Stuart Rose and I’m the chairman of the Better in Britain campaign, Better Stay in Britain campaign.”

Actually, he is chairman of Britain Stronger in Europe. The easy way to remember is to think of the initials, BSE, which – as Eurosceptics delight in pointing out – also stands for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.

Balls to the voters

“So what made you leave Parliament to be a football chairman?” Ed Balls was asked by Robbie Savage of BT Sport, after Norwich City’s home defeat to Liverpool. “The electorate,” he replied.

Jeremy’s geography lesson

Jeremy Corbyn has been asked to meet a couple of Falkland Islanders who want to brief him about the geography of the south Atlantic and related matters.

The Labour leader has attracted volumes of condemnation and some personal abuse since he suggested last week that there should be “sensible dialogue” with Buenos Aires. The one person to praise him was, unhelpfully, Alicia Castro, the outgoing Argentine ambassador. She said Corbyn had suggested that there could be a deal similar to the one that brought about power- sharing in North Ireland.

The islanders seem to have received his remarks with more calm than was displayed on these shores. Members of the Legislative Assembly studied what Corbyn said, and one of them, Mike Summers, told the islands’ newspaper Penguin News that “he and his colleagues regarded Mr Corbyn’s comments as encouraging to a degree, but confused”.

They said he was confused because he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that the Falklands are “just off” the Argentine coast. In fact there are 250 nautical miles between the islands and the mainland, and nearly 1,200 miles between Port Stanley and Buenos Aires.

Roger Edwards, a member of the Falklands Assembly, is in the UK next month. He is hoping that he and the Falklands representative in London, Sukey Cameron, will be able to meet the Labour leader.