Those of you brave enough to come out from behind the sofa to watch David Cameron's cringe-worthy appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross last week will have been left in no doubt about his desperation to be viewed as trendy. Open collar shirt, expensive suit, one leg crossed over the other he looked every inch a A-list celebrity...until he opened his mouth.

But third billing behind Bruce Willis and Martina Navratilova hardly bodes well for the next General Election, does it?

Andrew Smith, the wide-eyed Labour MP for Oxford East, has been positively gushing over Iron Chancellor Gordon Brown ahead of his, er, coronation as the next Labour leader and possibly PM.

Mr Smith, once a staunch Blairite, has even tried to make his friend appear, well, normal and even a great big softy.

He said: "He's got a very relaxed, open and friendly way of going about things, but it's very difficult for him to project his own personality while he is a leader in waiting rather than the leader.

"I am absolutely confident he will do a fantastic job for the Labour Party he is much funnier when you see him in person."

Glad you told us, Andrew.

In football parlance, Lib Dem defector Saj Malik has been described as a "Galctico signing" by one of his new Labour chums after the Cowley Marsh city councillor jumped ship yesterday.

And sticking with the football analogies, he couldn't resist a cheeky little dig at his political opponents.

He said: "Seeing that football matches have to be abandoned when the opposition gets down to seven men, the Lib Dems had better watch their step."

Following on from last week, many thanks for all your suggestions as to which city and county councillors have England squad counterparts, after Tony Blair described David Miliband as the Wayne Rooney of the Government.

One correspondent even dared to suggest that Keith Mitchell, the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, was similar to England captain David Beckham in that he was "ageing, slow and coming to the end of his career".

Meanwhile, another reckoned Oxford city Labour councillor Dan Paskins was like Owen Hargreaves because "he is consistently underrated, but really quite sharp and coming into a role that suits him".