Will Sir Tony Blair be hauled before the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry into the lease enjoyed by Andrew Mountbatten Windsor at Royal Lodge?

Blair was PM when the sweetheart deal for him to move in was struck with the Crown Estate in 2003, effectively meaning the then prince was able to live there rent free. Blair was also a driving force behind the decision to bring in globe-trotting Andrew as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment in 2001.

Two years later, Andrew signed the 75-year lease on Royal Lodge with the Crown Estate over which the Treasury has oversight. Blair was a fan of Andrew around that time. Could that help explain why he got such a good deal on the lease?

One senior Tory told me: ‘We need to know who knew what about that lease. Was there a political involvement and if so, what did Blair know? The PAC should haul him in.’

New digs for Andrew

Thursday’s recording of Have I Got News For You was interrupted by the breaking news Andrew was no longer a Prince.

‘The bad news is he’s become King,’ panellist Paul Merton joked. Presenter Jason Manford clarified: ‘He’s losing his lease on Royal Lodge… I’ve heard Rachel Reeves has a place to rent though.’

Black humour doing the rounds at Westminster about Andrew’s relationship with Virginia Giuffre:

The banned old Duke of York,

He had 12million quid,

He gave it to someone he never met,

For something he never did.

Since the Spring Review, Rachel Reeves’ hair seems to have gained about a year’s worth of growth. What is the Chancellor’s secret? It’s the kind of increase you’d see on Pinocchio’s nose… 

Even former bishops are now quitting the Church of England with Paul Bayes, of Liverpool, leaving over its refusal to marry gay people. ‘I grieve to say that I have had enough of this Church and its rectitudes,’ thunders Bayes. Last one to leave, please snuff out the candles.

Sky News political editor Beth Rigby says after work the adrenaline is off the scale. ‘I will go home and dance around for an hour. It’s either that or drugs…what am I gonna do?’ Sounds like a thinly veiled application to Strictly. 

Sign of things to come

Most council by-elections attract a derisory turnout and local parties are hard pushed to find members willing to bang on doors and deliver election leaflets.

But a by-election for Barnet Council last Thursday was different. Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, Kevin Hollinrake, the party chairman, and Robert Jenrick, the would-be leader, all campaigned in the election in the Hendon ward.

On a turnout of 25 per cent, the Tories romped home by 600 votes with Reform in second place. Is this a sign of thing to come between the two parties?

Much anticipation for Wednesday when Deputy PM David Lammy will be doing PMQs for the first time as Starmer is away. We all remember his time on Celebrity Mastermind when he said Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII and Marie Antoinette won the Nobel Prize.