Bolton gig just the ticket for 'the other Phil Collins'

As Tony Blair and his lackeys prepare to depart No 10 and pursue alternative employ, I hear that one leading manservant is already walking the streets, cap in hand, looking for somewhere to lay it.

The PM's admirably-monikered speechwriter, Phil Collins, who to my knowledge has never selected a Genesis track at karaoke, was last week prowling about the Labour fortress of Bolton South East, where the MP Brian Iddon will stand down at the next election, helpfully leaving an 11,000-plus majority.

"I'm just walking around!" Collins tells me over the blower, taking a break from chatting up potential supporters in his Bury twang.

Shockingly, he doesn't see his association with the outgoing PM as a local vote winner. "That is never brought up in Bolton," he insists. "They're more interested in the fact that I'm local."

The PM's wordsmith hasn't always been blessed with helpful media coverage. Only last autumn, the Brownite Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire wrote that Collins had been overheard "declaring how, if Big Gordie succeeded T Blair, he'd quit the party". So thank goodness the prospective candidate has cleared this up: "It's ridiculous!" exclaims Collins. "I think Gordon Brown will be an excellent Prime Minister." He adds: "Everything Kevin Maguire writes is absolutely wrong!"

Collins has sent Labour locals a letter outlining his credentials, including his two novels. Some remain sceptical. Growls one: "His boss's name is a swear word round here so good luck to him."

Hughes flies dangerously off-road into the Hay mud

Sean Hughes is returning to the stand-up circuit after nine years and a few aborted gigs. His performance at the Hay Festival, however, left many in the audience wondering if this was such a good idea.

"I've never paid for sex in my life," he informed a few stunned grannies at the front. "Which has pissed off a hell of a lot of prostitutes, I can tell you."

Then Hughes decided the abduction of Madeleine McCann was fair game: "Did you see they went to the see the Pope last week? I don't think he's involved. I mean, I know he's a Nazi, but, well..." He followed that with a segment sbout children with Down's Syndrome playing football. Embarrassed silence.

Hughes, 41, added that he still has an eye for 25-year-old women - and indeed that proved the case, when Pandora found him smoking and red-eyed at Hereford railway station, receiving a back massage from a curvaceous blonde of that vintage. Hopefully his chat-up lines are more tasteful than his "jokes".

Stuckists prune Vine

I hear of further pestilence visited upon the artist Stella Vine by her former husband Charles Thomson, the co-founder of the Stuckist anti-conceptual art movement.

Vine used to be a vocal Stuckist. Yet in the blurb for her forthcoming exhibition at Modern Art Oxford, she finds no room to mention this. "When she joined the Stuckists," claims Thomson, who has demonstrated nude portraits of his ex-wife, "her work was fairly ordinary - drab really. Her current bite evolved in part from working with artists who are so honest. Stuckists feel angry that she has ignored this influence on her work."

Perhaps she just forgot; nevertheless, Thomson is organising a rival exhibition at Wimbledon's A Gallery, I Won't Have Sex With You As Long As We're Married.

Shipshape

Prezza was recuperating in hospital yesterday morning with a suspected chest infection, thus missing his engagement with the young crew of a replica 18th-century slave ship, the Amistad Freedom Schooner.

He handwrote them a note from his hospital bed: "I am so sorry I can't be with you today as I was taken ill at the weekend. I just wanted you to know that I am so proud that young people from the former slave ports of Bristol, Liverpool and London will play a part in this historic tour, spreading tolerance and respect across the world.

"I sailed across the Atlantic many times as a seaman, but only on liners. I have great respect for what you are about to do and I wish you all a safe journey and a fantastic voyage."

Get well soon JP.

Brothers turn on 'Postman Al'

Blood on the lino at Bournemouth's International conference centre, where the wannabe-DPM Alan Johnson took a knife between the 'blades from his former union brethren. The steaming postmen of the Communication Workers Union stunningly overturned a decision by their executive to back Johnson (their former general secretary) in the deputy leader contest.

Comrades denounced Johnson's deviation from the True Light; he's seen as a traitor over post office closures and union freedoms. Union execs' support for AJ was "like having a fry-up for the bailiffs before they repossess your cooker", said one. Added another: "I'd prefer a lamp post." Asked another: "What will the executive reveal next? Is it Margaret Thatcher for the NHS, Rupert Murdoch for head of the BBC and Nicolae Ceausescu dug up to head the Electoral Commission?" Rival Jon Cruddas may benefit.