Westminster Times: Football Foolishness, Soaking Boris, Speedos, Curry and Brown's Old Jokes

Even if you steadfastly refuse to watch, read or listen to anything related to sport you will still not be able to avoid being bombarded with trivia about the world cup. I know, I've tried.

So, inevitably, our leaders have been scrambling over each other to show how "normal" they are by offering support to our boys in Brazil. And where better to show off their support than through the soccer-supporting Sun newspaper?

Actually, as far as Liverpool is concerned, just about anywhere else would be better.

And if you had launched a robust political campaign against Rupert Murdoch, again anywhere else might have been better.

Yet Ed Miliband, along with David Cameron and Nick Clegg, appeared to have forgotten that the Sun is still pretty much banned in Liverpool because of its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster 25 years ago.

The three leaders were all happily pictured holding up a copy of the newspaper's "This Is Our England" special giveaway edition.

The backlash was instant and furious with his own Liverpool MPs pointing out the anger and disappointment he was inviting from their voters. So he became the first to apologise.

But others in the party were equally annoyed by the fact he had appeared to forget it was not that long ago that he was scoring political points by leading the anti-Murdoch campaign over phone-hacking.

They felt that demanded a separate apology for hypocrisy. Which was not forthcoming.

Oh dear. When will politicians stop trying to be normal. And wouldn't it be refreshing if just one of them declared they weren't really all that bothered about football?

Silly question of the week

Is there nothing Boris Johnson won't do to get a headline?

His latest stunt - to offer to be hosed down by water cannon to prove how safe it is - has sparked great hilarity in Westminster with a number of MPs, quite a few of them Tories, volunteering to man the hose.

No one thinks it will actually happen of course. Unless he attempts a smash and grab raid on No 10.

Nightmare image of the week

Labour's Pamela Nash was clearly traumatised after the prime minister happened to mention during question time that he occasionally wore Speedos. Try getting that image out of your head.

Nash rose to put a question but said she was struggling because she was going to have nightmares as a result of this revelation.

The prime minister attempted to reassure her, declaring he could "clear that picture out of her mind" by revealing Speedos also made shorts.

And that's supposed to be better is it. A Brit in shorts?

Currying favour

It wasn't only Cameron engaging in a bit of product placement, however.

Speaker John Bercow ordered Labour's Ronnie Campbell to stop yelling across the chamber, saying: "When you're eating curry in the Kennington Tandoori you don't yell across the table". Mind you, I'm certain I heard somebody dispute that.

However, if the said curry house doesn't now put framed pictures of Bercow in full regalia in their window under the logo "By Appointment to the Commons Speaker..." or something similar, then they are missing a trick.

My local curry house is splattered with pictures and endorsements as "the best curry in North London" by none other than The Darkness, a long-defunct spoof rock band. (At least I hope they were a spoof).

Gordon tells a joke

Actually, the former prime minister used to be the life and soul of any party and it was nice to see he could still do it.

He addressed a lunch with political journalists in Westminster and spoke about what it was about Britain that made it Britain.

For example: "Britain would not be Britain without Mr Farage with a pint in one hand and a mystery lady in the other," he said.

He also attempted a bit of self-deprecation saying after the lunch he was planning to take one of the guided tours of the Commons.

Some of his other jokes were a bit, let's just say tried and tested. Mind you, I still like the one about the protesters at a G7 meeting holding a banner reading "Worldwide Campaign Against Globalism".