Young Prezza set to follow in Dad's mighty footsteps

When John Prescott stands down as the MP for Hull East at the next election – as is expected – one man whose name is in the frame is his youngest son, David Prescott, 37.

I hear that Prezza Junior has told friends he "definitely" plans to stand for selection.

"He is very, very keen on it," says an ally. "He was born in Hull and grew up there, and went to a state school locally. He is active in London Labour politics in Greenwich and he spends a lot of time in Hull. He has earned his ticket. He's not some celebrity carpetbagger."

The likely Brownite rival for the seat is Chris Leslie, who moons ago did Gordon Brown's photocopying; then became the youngest MP at 24; then lost his seat in Shipley, Yorkshire; then ran a London think-tank before returning to the fold to run Gordon's leadership campaign. Local Labour types are said to treat Leslie with suspicion.

Like Leslie, David Prescott awaits an official announcement from Prezza Snr before campaigning can begin in earnest.

David, a political lobbyist and former broadcaster (he proposed to his wife, Roz, in the middle of a weather forecast in 2002), got his first scoop as a local reporter by interviewing his mother Pauline. But the weight of his old man will not help in this contest. Prezza will, apparently, be "pleased as punch" to see his youngest son go into politics, but the former Deputy Prime Minister can't be seen to influence his constituency Labour Party and will not comment on the matter.

* fear that the Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell, left, may soon fall out of favour with the famously profane patrons of the Colony Room club in Soho, once home to Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and George Melly, and now to the BritArt crowd.

Borrell – who has been dating Spiderman's missus Kirsten Dunst, although there are rumours of a split – recently told one of Pandora's moles: "If you want to smoke, go down the Colony Room. Everyone goes there after the Groucho because it's the only place you can still smoke."

What about the smoking ban, Johnny? "It's OK, they don't know about it yet." Whoops!

I look forward to hearing how much of the establishment's boozy charm is extended to Mr Borrell on his next visit. The claim is all the more bizarre given that he doesn't smoke, of course, having given up to save his voice.

* Lily Allen, daughter of Hell's bar-prop Keith, is not short of a sense of self-assurance. Ms Allen, top, swanned into the snappy new members' club Shoreditch House with an entourage of stately, affluent-looking ladies in African headdresses. The first person to greet her was the camp chart-topping popstrel Mika, below.

"He was fawning all over her, it was embarrassing really," says my barfly, gagging into her Mojito. "He introduced himself and was really deferential. Lily couldn't have cared less."

Flapping around for small talk, Mika remembered the occasion Lily had got friends to carry her out of a nightclub in a sack. He said: "So, you're not wearing a Habitat carrier bag tonight ..."

Lily Allen: "And you're not in drag for once."

* Labour party wigs have worked themselves into a lather over "Meddling" Michael Ashcroft's support for the Tories. Through his company, Bearwood, Lord Ashcroft uses a loophole in the law (allowing a party to spend as much as it likes between elections) to make donations totalling more than £1m to Conservative candidates in marginal seats.

Rattled Labour bean watchers were convinced they had uncovered a scandal: a £2,000 donation to the highly marginal seat of Loughborough had not been declared to the Electoral Commission. Cue full "It's an outrage" mode.

Alas, a red-faced Electoral Commission concedes: "It's an administrative error on our part." The gift had actually been put under Kensington and Chelsea – one of the safest Tory seats in the country. Back to the drawing board.

* Small screen execs flocked to Edinburgh at the weekend for some navel-gazing at the International Television Festival. Of particular interest, given recent exposés of editing and premium phone-line scandals, was the "Trust Me ... I'm In Telly" debate. Channel 4 chief exec Andy Duncan (the man behind I Can't Believe It's Not Butter) and the respective directors of television at the BBC and ITV, Jana Bennett and Simon Shaps, addressed breach of audience trust.

Alas, the festival organisers failed to predict there might be any great appetite for the session, scheduling it in a small side room. Dozens of suits and hacks were refused entry; two execs tossed a coin for the privilege of being the last sardine squeezed in. One man turned away was Channel 4's director of television, Kevin Lygo – my colleague Matthew Norman's cousin by marriage (whom he has never met) and the champion of Big Brother. Worrying.