Steerpike

Maria Miller is losing friends, fast. Furious briefing over the last 24 hours has seen a host of Tory MPs withdraw their support for the embattled Culture Secretary - and question the judgment of the Prime Minister. One ‘senior minister, speaking on condition of anonymity’, twisted the knife in the Telegraph: ‘In my view she has clearly behaved in a way that is incompatible with what she should be doing as a Cabinet minister. The decision to keep her on undermines the Prime Minister because he has talked about a new kind of politics.’ That outburst was followed by another Tory MP, who told the Evening Standard: ‘It’s ghastly, it’s just making us look all the same. It is setting back the reputation of parliament and MPs.

Westminster City Council is advertising the role (offered by the Westminster Adult Education Service) of tutor in ‘Ukrainian egg decoration’ – at £25 an hour. Anyone who thinks that the job would be a walk in the Royal Parks should think again. The advert says: ‘As well as being enthusiastic and motivated you need to have a teaching qualification (minimum PTTLS)’. Mr S better put his tiny ornate paintbrush away. He would have applied for the equally well remunerated ‘hula-hooper’ tutor too, were it not for the equally restrictive qualification barrier. Tristram Hunt must be so proud that teaching qualifications are being taken so seriously.

It’s not just Vince Cable who is getting it in the neck today for the scathing report into the sell-off of the Royal Mail. Michael Fallon is copping his share of the blame too. Fallon has friends in high places; but he’s wound up one of his Tory colleagues: ‘Fallon is 62 years old this year, and is one of those safe-seat types. You know, the sort of guy who thinks 'campaign' is a fizzy white wine from France. His whole job was to sit on Vince Cable. But he's been AWOL in recent months, and today the National Audit Office has holed Fallon below the waterline. This Royal Mail story will badly damage him.’ Now, now. The expected reshuffle is still months away, but Tories are already taking blunt instruments to each other. Delicious!

Congratulations to Sarah Vine. Last night the Mail columnist achieved the almost impossible feat of getting the leader of the Labour Party to defend his party's favourite pantomime villain: Michael Gove. ‘I feel like I should rush to your husband’s defence now,’ spluttered Ed Miliband on ITV’s Agenda last night, declaring that he was sure that the Education Secretary (Vine’s husband) was a great father. The secret to Vine’s success is to have no secrets. She is making a career out of revealing the minute details of the power couple's domestic arrangements.

Westminster and Fleet Street are all a flutter about An Unexpected MP: Confessions of a Political Gossip, the memoirs of former Tory MP, Jerry Hayes. It’s a fun, naughty read. As a fellow diarist, Mr S particularly enjoyed Hayes’s tales from his days at Punch. Hayes joined the magazine in the late nineties during its revival under the proprietorship of Mohamed Al Fayed and the editorship of James Steen, the man who Piers Morgan once called ‘the world’s most mischievous journalist.’ ‘James had a particularly mischievous side,’ Hayes writes. ‘He was also a fantastic mimic who used to love to wind up the rich and pompous. One of his favourite targets was the Daily Mail's gossip king, Nigel Dempster.

The Budget has, in recent years, been more tears than laughter, more pain than gain. Yet the upturn in Britain’s economic fortunes has put the Chancellor, whose ‘5 and 2’ diet has had a dramatic effect on his waistline, in a buoyant mood. Osborne's wit – famously sharp in private – shone through in public this afternoon. He began slowly, by teasing Ed Balls. He reminded the chamber of Labour’s dire financial record, which elicited his first laugh: 'Or, as the Shadow Chancellor put it: "some mistakes were made".' Boom-tish.

Game over: Eddie Izzard has cursed the union. The comedian who once championed equal clothing rights has waded into the debate over Scottish independence, to the horror of supporters of the union. You might imagine that we unionists would welcome a celebrity endorsement – even from a c-lister like Izzard. But he has a dreadful track record when it comes to these things. He was a devout Europhile who campaigned for us to join the single currency. He supported Gordon Brown and Labour at the last election. He backed Ken Livingstone last time round in London. And who can forget Izzard’s deathless contribution to the Yes2AV campaign?