Steerpike

There can only be one winner when you play the Game of Thrones. Any fan will tell you that. The victor, though, always comes as surprise: witness below Tory backwoodsman Alec Shelbrooke resplendent on the Iron Throne. The bombastic MP for Elmet, who is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, visited the set of the hit HBO series, which is being filmed in Ulster. He's been proudly flashing the picture around the conference bar. It's the closest thing to leadership speculation that I have picked up on, so far.

Damian McBride has written the Diary for this week’s edition of the Spectator. It’s a masterpiece in mischief. Mr Steerpike spluttered his coffee when he read Mad Dog’s thoughts on Bad Al Campbell’s reaction to the publication of Power Trip: Campbell hit the airwaves and bombarded McBride online, casting himself as some sort moral paragon when it comes to the world of spin. As McBride puts it: ‘I thought about replying that he hasn't lost any of his old hounding skills, but decided it would be in bad taste.’ The repentant sinner-spinner has lost none of his brio, then; although he concedes: ‘I may be learning slowly, but I'm learning.’ No doubt Campbell will take this with the understated dignity we have come to expect from him.

The Labour party recently reached a stage where the only person in the entire country not giving Ed Miliband advice about how to lead was Ed Miliband himself. That has died down now, especially after another crowd-pleasing conference speech. But this evening Tessa Jowell offered a little bit more in the way of help. She told a fringe after her leader's speech that the party's job was now to take today's policy announcements to the country, saying: 'I think Ed should just go on travelling around the country, exposing himself to many people.' Crikey! But didn't the leader vow to keep his kit firmly on if he became Prime Minister (' if I become Prime Minister I won’t take my shirt off in public, I mean it is just not necessary is it?')?

As Mr Steerpike reported last week, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been seeking an apostle to spread the good news to the media. Today it has been announced that Alisa Anderson, the Queen’s press secretary, will join the staff at Lambeth Palace. As Royal watchers will know, Anderson was last seen pinning the announcement of the birth of Prince George of Cambridge to the golden easel outside Buckingham Palace. There’ll be no such glamour at Lambeth.

Lord Ashcroft’s Lunch Offensive continues, mercilessly. When he’s not entertaining Tom Watson and other animals, the former Tory donor can be spotted plotting with naughtier Cabinet ministers and loose-lipped journalists. Today’s luncheon companions would have had the PM choking into his packed lunch at the Tory away day: his lordship was clocked wooing Hugh Grant in Gran Paradiso, in Victoria. Grant was accompanied by Dr Evan Harris, with whom he fronts the anti-media lobbying group Hacked Off. As it happens, Lord Ashcroft has had more than a few run-ins with the press over the years, most notably with the Times. He recorded the details of that spat in his punchy tome Dirty Politics, Dirty Times. The billionaire denies that he has funded Hacked Off.

Nick Clegg always rails against the same old politics, identikit politicians and the like. So how will he cope now that tech whizzes have worked out how to print their own politician? This 3D model of the Deputy Prime Minister took seven and a half hours of printing on the Microsoft stand at the Liberal Democrat conference.