Hoarding gossip nuts for the winter
Fools rush in
As the deadline for the Housing Corporation's Challenge Fund for prefabs and key workers looms, many in the sector must be cursing their eagerness. My mole tells me that two weeks before Lord Rooker announced the fund, leading RSLs received a furtive phone call from Tottenham Court Road enquiring if, say, £200m was made available, would they be able to spend it? The answer was a resounding "yes please!" Dearie me, did no one think to say "don't be silly, we'll need more time"?

Dissension in the ranks
Not all Tories are keen on their party's plans to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants, as shadow housing minister Geoffrey Clifton-Brown discovered in Bournemouth last week.

Delegates queued up to make their feelings felt at a packed fringe meeting on homelessness. They included formidable Reigate & Banstead council leader Joan Spiers. She informed Clifton-Brown that her borough had a dire enough housing shortage and green belt restrictions and was not about to make nurses and firemen homeless, thank you very much. Ouch.

Anyone for a bland Curry?
Former Conservative housing minister David Curry must have heard a fair number of jokes about his namesake – and he isn't shy of making a few himself. After a fringe meeting participant referred to Geoffrey Clifton-Brown as Clinton-Brown, Curry said: "My name is spelled with a 'y' if anyone wants to know. There are three Curries in public life and happily I am the least interesting of them." You might say that David, I couldn't possibly comment.

Respite for poor Norma
Meanwhile, in former prime minister John Major's constituency of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, curry was not on the menu at the opening of a new supported housing development. For easily deduced reasons, Major's wife Norma had to turn down an invitation to open the Muir Group Housing Association scheme at the very last minute. The project does include a "respite bungalow", though, which I am sure is just what she needs right now.

Hull of horrors
Spare a moment to reflect on the bitter irony of deputy prime minister John Prescott and chancellor Gordon Brown's diary dates this week. Imagine how Brown must have felt upon realising he was scheduled to announce increased freedoms for only the highest of high-performing councils in (gasp, bite nails and glance furtively) Hull.

Hull, where the Audit Commission encountered such horrors at the town hall. Hull, where the former Labour council leader is threatening to sue the commission for alleged inaccuracies in its report. Hull, which has the deputy prime minister as one of its MPs. Prescott cannot have been too happy about it, either.

Have you heard the one about …

Kent council leader Sandy Bruce-Lockhart wears his humour on his key ring. The offending object was a birthday present from his wife. It says: “The trouble with political jokes is … they get elected”. The people who put together the regional planning guidance for the South-east would surely agree.