Pandora: Fiona flees the phone flinging

Pandora's onion is beginning to look tatty, as we shed a tear for the Prime Minister's outgoing henchwoman ("political secretary") Fiona Gordon, the former purveyor of Tony Blair Christmas DVDs and identikit "personal" press releases for MPs.

The PM's public relations enforcer, Stephen Carter, greenlit her humane euthanising. As the political blogger Guido Fawkes puts it, Fiona "bears the brunt of most of Gordon Brown's mobile phone-flinging tantrums" – a reference to the Brown's rumoured habit of smashing his handset on the floor when losing his temper. Fiona takes flak for Brown's bungled non-election and the failed attempted hiring of City whizz-kid David Pitt-Watson to sort Labour's finances. Her other half is Steve McCabe MP, running the ugly campaign in Crewe. When I called yesterday, Fiona insisted the PM had not thrown a Naomi Campbell fit at her: "No, no, sorry!"

On the record: Oona in da hood with debut rap solo

Not sure where we should start with this one: Oona King is becoming a rapper.

Shake your heavy gold jewellery at the back: the former MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, who works as a backroom girl for the Prime Minister after being ousted by George Galloway in 2005, has recorded a rap record about genocide with the soul artist JDaCosta. Her contribution: a speech to the Commons on war crimes. Clutching a copy of Hansard, the supporter of the Iraq War can be heard: "Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker. I'm initiating this debate on the International Criminal Court, which represents nothing less than mankind's efforts to outlaw gross atrocities, crimes against humanity." Catchy! You'll be humming it before long.

King's voice fades out and JDaCosta sings: "I'm not a politician, nor neither a magician, but I've come to the conclusion, there's only one solution, to walk so far away from this public disarray of disillusion. You're nothing but confusion." The record, produced by some Asian beat combo fella called "The Jackal", will go on promotional release this summer with an intended commercial release in the autumn.

King's voice was "amazing", according to the singer's manager.

King, tipped to become the PM's No 10 enforcer (see cartoon story), concedes that she is "inflicting torture on the nation", adding: "She asked me for some help and I agreed to read out the text of an old Parliamentary debate."

Last year Galloway reached number six in the singles chart with a cover of Edwin Starr's "War".

Equity tells Kenwright: get yer wallet out

Plastic swords and buckets of fake blood at the ready: Bill Kenwright and the acting union Equity are to enter battle.

As the chairman of Everton Football Club, Kenwright, is familiar with being badgered for better wages. His thick hide takes a tanning though in an astonishing broadside in The Stage. Equity president, Harry Landis, pans Bill as "the worst payer in the West End". "They keep saying he's going to put lots of money into Everton this summer, but that money comes from poorly paid actors," Landis tells Pandora. "He pays the bare minimum £400 a week. He won't open his books so we can only go on what his cast – our members – say.

"It's disgusting that lots of actors in the West End need another job, or sometimes two. They say he had a bumper season. Well where's the money?" Kenwright runs current productions of Blood Brothers, Cabaret and The Vortex. His associate producer and representative on earth, Julius Green, shoots back that Landis has been "ignorant", "misleading" and "blatantly slanderous". Replies Landis: "Let him sue."

When Joanne met Johnny

Waking up and finding a sweaty troll staring back at you in the mirror is not a daily challenge faced by Johnny Depp, or his partner Vanessa Paradis, for that matter.

Most gals, and a few chaps, swoon for the actor. Not the former French teacher Joanne Harris befriended by Depp after his appearance as a Gypsy love interest in the adaptation of her capricious novel, Chocolat.

The trainer-wearing writer, 43, did not meet Depp, below right, on set, unlike the rest of the cast, because he raced off to a separate filming commitment. She gave interviews saying she was unexcited about his involvement; he was "not my type".

Depp read the interviews. He subsequently bumped into Harris at the Chocolat premiere: "Ah, Joanne Harris. I'm not your type."

At every meeting he teases her about who she'd date. "I just didn't fancy that grunge thing he had going," Harris told fellow scribes over roast vegetables and halloumi at the Authors' Club on Tuesday.

Pigs might...

No one wearing a jacket with sleeves would look to the lobbyist Michelle Di Leo for impartial advice on aviation policy; the lady known to her political enemies as Bella Ragazza (Italian for beautiful girl) used to work for the British Lung Foundation, but now directs the airport expansion group Flying Matters. (Cough.)

Reacting to the Sustainable Development Commission report which suggests the Government tears up plans for airport expansion and stops stifling debate, Di Leo says: "The [2003] air transport white paper was based on 13 months of public consultation and 500,000 responses. If that doesn't represent thorough consultation, I don't know what does." Pffff. As she knows, that consultation revealed widespread opposition to airport growth.

pandora@independent.co.uk