Mr Gordon has a quiet drink

GORDON Brown was gasping for a drink at the conclusion of his four-nation tour of South-east Asia last week, and Her Majesty's representatives in Indonesia were not much help. They were incapable of getting the soccer results from home, and there was about as much serious sherbet as you might find at a Muslim wedding. The Chancellor was reduced to diving into a hotel in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, to demand a beer. He got one. Well, he got several, but his enjoyment was somewhat disturbed by a messenger going round with a large placard saying: "Will Mr Gordon please ring Mr Tony." Thankfully, Jakarta is one of the few places where you can honestly say that the phones don't work. Not even Charlie Whelan, his personal spin-doctor, could get through on his famous Red Lion mobile. So Mr Gordon was able to enjoy his beer in peace.

AMID all the hue and cry over Mary Bell and the money paid to her for her co-operation with Gitta Sereny's book, nobody seems to have paid much attention to that other criminal, the former IRA terrorist Sean O'Callaghan, who is hoping to make a pretty penny from his autobiography. The book is titled The Informer, enough to make any fan of Liam O'Flaherty's classic novel of the same name blanch. Not only is O'Callaghan a self-confessed "former senior IRA commander", hoping to make money from his past criminal activities, but he is being allowed a platform in the House of Commons to peddle his wares. The Grand Committee Room, no less, has been booked for a press conference and reception on 20 May, hosted by Harry Barnes, Labour MP, and the sweetly barmy end of the Tory Bottomley duo, Peter Bottomley MP, who was once a junior minister in the Northern Ireland office. The invitation to his terrorfest emphasises that O'Callaghan, who served eight years for the murder of a woman UDR member and a Catholic RUC officer, is now considered "a respected political writer and author". Oh yes? Not by Creevey he ain't, even if Andrew Neil did visit him in jail.

THERE is a perfectly respectable school of thought that argues that nationalism is the bane of modern Africa. So it comes as something of a surprise that Britain should have chosen a Nationalist to participate in a Commonwealth delegation to observe democratic elections in Lesotho. For the first time, the UK parliament will be represented by a Scottish Nationalist MP, Margaret Ewing, who is unquestionably good company but not one to hide her nationalist light under a bushel. At a time when the Nats are running ahead of Labour in Scotland for the first time, this seems to be an act of generosity too far. Inclusiveness surely has its limits.

THE days of champagne socialism are clearly numbered. New Labour simply cannot afford it. A Labour MP has complained bitterly to the Westminster authorities that one of his guests in the House of Commons was asked pounds 7.90 for a glass of champagne. The anonymous MP is in receipt of a magisterial rebuke from the booze baron, aka Operations Manager Nigel Hutson. He is "unable to verify" that champers is priced so highly, but he does admit that champagne costs practically twice as much in the Commons Banqueting Room as in the souvenir shop - pounds 32.75 as against pounds 18.60. Mr Harrumphson adds: "I will assume, with your reference to constituents not being able to afford champagne by the glass at pounds 7.90, that you are referring to banqueting prices, even though the true price in banqueting is pounds 5.46." This is because the quaintly titled refreshment department relies on selling five glasses per bottle when it is sold by the glass. "This allows for one glass as 'wastage' when we do not sell a full bottle before the champagne becomes 'flat'," he insists. So, that's the truth, then. New Labour has gone flat.

SOMETHING certainly has. The Strangers' Bar, where MPs take their guests for a quick "vote-for-me", is advertising a tropical life-style on the Commons terrace, complete with a hammock slung between some coconut trees. It is all a mirage. There are no trees on the terrace, and certainly no hammock, though MPs have been known to go to sleep in the sunshine. Perhaps it is the after-effect of an extraordinary beer now on sale. There is supposed to be a world shortage of chocolate, but the Strangers is offering Chocolate Beer (alcohol by volume 4 per cent). It tastes like an Aero Bar dipped in brown ale. No wonder nobody is buying it.

THROBBIN' Robin Cook has finally succumbed to Cool Britannia. He has thrown out the giant portrait of an Indian maharajah that has graced the Foreign Secretary's palatial office for as long as anyone can remember. He has kept a smaller picture of the Queen. Out, too, have gone rows of leather-bound volumes, to be replaced by an exhibition of trendy British designs that would be at home in the Millennium Dome.

Paul Routledge