Iceland supermarket boss Lord (Richard) Walker, who became Keir Starmer's 'cost of living czar' after defecting from the Tories, appears to be getting disillusioned.

Attention-seeking Walker, who jumped ship after being denied a safe Conservative seat, only took up his government job in February, two months after being made a Labour peer.

But in a little-noticed speech in the upper house earlier this month, he delivered a devastating attack on the Government.

'I support the Labour Party, not the 'Benefits Party',' he raged, 'a party that promised to be pro-growth, pro-business and on the side of the builders, not the blockers. I was happy to support Labour in 2024 precisely because it promised a growth-first mission. Yet I have to confess that progress has been slower than I imagined.'

It's not the first time Walker has caused controversy. In 2023, he was forced to retract a claim that three Iceland staff members contracted HIV as a result of needle attacks by shoplifters.

Tory Sir Alec Shelbrooke found himself the target of a salty jibe in the Commons when he rose to speak about BBC radio. 'He's got a face for radio!' quipped Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, rather harshly it has to be said. The remark was rewarded with laughter, but Sir Alec didn't seem to find it entirely amusing. 

Bercow has enemies in high places 

If John Bercow, that pompous pipsqueak of a former Commons Speaker, thinks campaigning for Andy Burnham in Makerfield will earn him a peerage, he needs to think again.

New peers must be vetted by the Lords Appointments Commission, which takes soundings in the House. Unfortunately for Bercow – the first Speaker to be denied a peerage in more than 300 years after a 2022 report found him guilty of bullying – among the Commission's members is Robert Lisvane.

Lord Lisvane, the Commons Clerk when Bercow was Speaker, was one of the main whistleblowers against his boss. Given how popular Lisvane is, any nomination of Bercow would attract a chorus of raspberries.

Given the state of Britain today, you might think Dunstable's Labour MP Alex Mayer would have bigger things to worry about than the cleaning products used by the Commons. But animal-rights obsessive Mayer wants to make politics 'cruelty-free' and that means discontinuing any cleaning products tested on animals.

Shouldn't she worry first about the terrible things being done to that poor old donkey Keir Starmer?

Stylish peer Baroness Stowell of Beeston has been rewarded with an appearance on the Stressed But Well Dressed fashion podcast. 'Looking smart at work has always been important,' says the former Conservative Leader of the Lords. She recalled her first sashay to No 10. 'I rang my dad and said: 'Put the telly on. You're about to see me walking up Downing Street.' ' 

Sharing the shrapnel

Last week, I reported that new Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis, a former major in the Parachute Regiment who was wounded during active service in Afghanistan, was the only MP with shrapnel in his brain.

And so apologies are in order to Colonel Lincoln Jopp, formerly of the Scots Guards, who has also set off airport metal detectors.

The Tory MP sustained his shrapnel injuries while defending a hotel complex and helping to evacuate British nationals during a military coup in Sierra Leone, actions which earned him the Military Cross in 1997.

Screenwriter Russell T Davies will lift the lid on his transgender-friendly 'woke' reinvention of Doctor Who in a tell-all memoir. The Queerest Of Folk will come out in the autumn. Which publisher has secured the rights? Transworld, of course.