“Bonkers” Boris Johnson doesn’t have to have names made up for him. His arms-length list of real names is funny enough. And his love of Ancient Greece has obviously informed the naming of his children, Cassia, Milo, Theodore Apollo and plain old Lara. But why does he marry women named after cars? Allegra and Marina being the mothers of the kids. But, if he wants to impress the capital’s gay community, he could always go for a spin with an Austin.

What’s in a name? Will Shakespeare’s next line is hardly applicable in Gordon Brown’s tragic circumstances. Nothing smells sweet about the election results, whatever you might want to call them. Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews has likened the PM to a tragic Shakespearean hero (we think he said hero). But he hasn’t said which one. Westminster wags have been spoilt for choice. How about the ambitious Scotsman who stabs his leader in the back then fluffs the job he inherits? Of course, Macbeth. Or a leader who messes up a plan for redistributing wealth? King Lear. Or what about Hamlet – racked with indecision and never knowing the answer to the question? “The man who came to dither” is another suggestion to crop up, while the CentreRight.com blogger Simon Chapman has come up with “the fiddler on the hoof”… Ouch.

WHILE young aspirants are being prised off even the bottom rung of the housing ladder, the Blairs’ appetite for property acquisition cannot apparently be sated. Tony and Cherie are taking advantage of the slump in property prices to go house hunting. As well as their old constituency home in Sedgefield and two flats bought in Bristol while son Euan was studying there, they own a Georgian townhouse, dubbed a “mini Downing Street”, in London’s Mayfair and an £800,000 knock-through mews house behind it. Now they want their very own Chequers. They are said by insiders in the country house market to be looking for a “historic” home within a 20-mile radius of the PM’s country residence and have even viewed a house called Chequers Manor. But with only £5 million to spend, Mr Blair has apparently set his sights on a 16th-century red-brick farmhouse near Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire. Formerly owned by Ian Anderson of rock band Jethro Tull, Pophleys was on the market last year for £6 million but can now be snapped up for a mere £5.25 million, which is just about stretchable. That would take the Blair’s estimated mortgage debt up to about £9 million, which he is borrowing on the strength of speaking fees of £250,000 a time and those yet-to-be-started memoirs.

AS ONE door opens, another closes. In other Whitehall departments jittery hordes of special advisers are reported to be passing their CVs to headhunters and recruitment agents in fear of their careers coming to a sudden end at the next election. According to industry insiders, they are making inquiries about jobs in public relations and consultancies. Some fear the rumoured September reshuffle could prove a career-changing moment for them even earlier. The problem is, in a changing political climate, the top agencies are now casting round for potential staff with Tory rather than Labour links.

BUT wait…step forward spin-doctor number eight. Richard Lloyd, who has just been appointed to the campaigns and communications team at Number 10, comes with an interesting pedigree which should make him feel at home in his new job. He is an arch critic of Tony Blair. He joins the team from his post as director of the global citizens’ rights organisation Consumers International. But before that he was head of the charity Landmine Action, where he was a fierce critic of the former PM, condemning Britain’s use of cluster bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. He accused Mr Blair of failing to “comprehend” the “appalling” injuries inflicted on civilians. Wonder what advice he has for the new boss?

MORE turmoil on planet Downing Street after Number 10 staff learned that Gordon Brown’s controversial new fixer, public relations man Stephen Carter, is paid as much as the Prime Minister Mr Carter, principal adviser to Gordie, is on a minimum wage-dwarfing £180,000 a year. Christine Drury, the secretarial assistant brought over with him from Brunswick, benefits from a package worth £70,000, which has discomfited some MPs on their relatively paltry £61,000. Mr Carter’s salary vastly exceeds the civil service maximum of £137,400 and its disclosure comes with the revelation that the taxpayer-funded wage bill for the team burnishing Gordon’s public image has risen by almost  £500,000 since January, to nearly £2 million a year. Maybe he should demand his money back.

SINCE this diary reported the mysterious damage to the website of Labour left think-tank Compass, news has reached us of another suspected hack attack this week. On Monday evening, as Gordon Brown met the Parliamentary Labour Party to head-off a rebellion over the 10p tax rate, it emerged that 39 MPs had backed Frank Field’s amendment postponing the changes to income tax until a compensation package for those losing out is agreed. Whose name was on the list among less seasoned rebels and ex-ministers? Arch-leftie John McDonnell, of course. And whose frequently updated blog stopped working the next morning?

THE former Deputy Prime Minister was in the news himself this week, with the revelation that he suffered from bulimia for a number of years. Happily, he is now recovered and urging others similarly afflicted to seek help. While Mr Prescott has been rightly lauded for his courage in speaking out, it has also emerged that he claimed £4,000 in parliamentary expenses in one year for food. Which now seems a bit of a waste.

HE’S Balls by name and balls by nature. First, it was alleged that the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, had engaged in a Cabinet altercation with have-a-go-hero Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, over which of them was responsible for youth crime. Now he has upset another heavyweight bruiser, Charles Clarke, a man who could easily find gainful employment as a nightclub bouncer. According to Mr Balls, recent criticism of the Prime Minister is “indulgent nonsense” emanating from people with scores to settle. According to Mr Clarke, a person who knows a few things about settling scores, Mr Balls is “well acquainted” with the sort of anonymous briefing he now condemns. The former Home Secretary also said his youthful adversary “should stop attacking others anonymously or in code and look to his own performance and record”. In happier days for the Government, John Prescott was called on to break up fisticuffs of this unsavoury nature. Perhaps he could intervene now.

ONCE it was said that selling-off Britain’s public utilities would give private companies a licence to print money. Now it seems this is no longer the case. It is claimed that 11 firms – including Anglian Water, Thames Water, Electricity North West and Northern Ireland Electricity – have collective debts amounting to a staggering £28 billion. Consequently, customers are advised to pray that an emergency never strikes, as the consequences might be serious disruption and huge bills. Ofwat and Ofgem, water and power regulators respectively, insist customers would be protected if a company were to be engulfed by financial problems. Presumably, this means it could expect to be the beneficiary of a bailout by taxpayers, in the style of Northern Rock. What a shame there is no chance of the Government being wise before the event, returning the former public utilities to public ownership and keeping them there.