Peterborough Diary: A sinking feeling at No 10 North

The cost of No 10 North is mounting. Andy Burnham’s Manchester office is now advertising for 50 external jobs – including a “rewiring the state deputy director” – costing £2.8m in basic salaries, excluding pensions. That’s on top of a replica black 10 Downing St door , costing £978. Now I can reveal the PM (pictured) has splashed out £1,700 on new plates and bowls. Government minister Mark Ferguson told MPs: “As would be expected for an office of the Prime Minister, crockery was required to support the delivery of hospitality for official visitors and guests as well as daily operation.”

Why not chuck in a new kitchen sink, too? Plucky Jim New Scottish Nationalist MP Lara Bird almost fell foul of Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, recently when she brought a cup of morning coffee into the House of Commons chamber, where food and drink are banned. Luckily for Bird, Democratic Unionist Party MP Jim Shannon spotted the faux pas and advised Bird that while she could bring in a glass of water, a cup of coffee is banned. Thus, a telling off from the Speaker was averted for the SNP’s Bird, who ruffled feathers earlier this year when she swore allegiance to the King with her fingers crossed.

And all thanks to a unionist MP, too. Reasonably-priced Patrick Paying tribute to actor Sir Patrick Stewart following his death last week, TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson recalled the theatrical knight’s appearance on the BBC’s Top Gear programme, saying: “He turned up so early and so unobtrusively to be a ‘star in the reasonably-priced car’, we mistook him for a delivery driver and asked him to go round the back.” The Star Trek actor duly removed his hat and declared: “But I’m the captain of the Enterprise.”

Bruno’s still fighting Former world boxing champion Frank Bruno says he wants to go on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here – if only to overcome his fear of rats. “I’m game for anything. But if I go on [the show], I have got to get my head round dealing with rats,” he told GB News . “I’ve never really liked them. They’re very funny-looking creatures, you know what I mean? You see a little rat and you want to try and run the other way.”

Bruno (pictured), who turns 65 this month and has just published a new memoir Bruno: Still Fighting , is phlegmatic. “I’ve had my good days and bad days,” he said. “But I mustn’t grumble. Life’s been sweet.” Noisy neighbours Celebrity jumper-wearer Gyles Brandreth has a seasonal pet hate: leaf blowers. He says: “Everybody on my street has got a leaf blower. I loathe it – the noise from other houses.” The only problem is that now Brandreth has one too.

He adds: “We have a leaf blower because, in our little front courtyard bit, the leaves get everywhere and so clearing them up is a bit of a problem because it’s gravel, so it’s useful. But the noise of it is unbearable. And our neighbours seem to use their leaf blowers at unsocial hours.” I prefer a rake. Ed’s diction Radio 4 Today presenter Ed Stourton , who died in July aged 68, might have been shamefully forced out by the BBC in 2008 as part of a push for younger listeners, but he was beloved in France.

His son Ivo told his memorial service at St Bride’s Fleet Street this week that a French banker colleague told him that Stourton’s broadcasts were played to his class at their lycée as “the perfect example of English diction”. Hayward’s standards To prepare for a possible early general election, the Conservatives are cranking up their candidate selections. Tory peer Robert Hayward has been drafted in to preside and ensure fair play at the selection meetings.

He sets strict standards. “If anybody’s mobile phone goes off, they will be required to make a donation of £30 to Help for Heroes,” he told Chelsea and Fulham Conservatives, which has chosen local councillor and businessman Tom Bennett as their candidate. No idle threat. A culprit was later duly fined. Pint-sized Brexit benefit Author Harry Wallop, who is giving a talk on Winston Churchill’s prodigious drinking next week at The Wallace Collection in London, says it is a “crying shame” that nearly 2,500 days since Brexit, champagne is still not yet sold in the UK in pint-sized bottles.

Over his 90 years, Churchill got through an estimated 42,000 bottles, many of them in pints. That size of bottle was meant to return after leaving the European Union. “It’s a wonderful measure. If you’re feeling abstemious, it’s the perfect bottle to share – two glasses each,” Wallop says. “If you’re feeling celebratory, it’s a lavish measure for one.” Can’t Andy Burnham make this part of the Brexit reset? Peterborough , published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope.

You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk