Bare night on a cold mountain

Another day, another poster. Sensitive to charges of negative advertising Dr Mawhinney and the Crispins from the Tory advertising agency had put their heads together and come up with something more positive. This was the clever idea of a visual pun involving the Labour Leader in juxtaposition with some appalling consequence of Labour victory. So number one was "Tony & Bill", showing the Rt Hon Anthony Charles Lynton Blair and - a bill (for 30 billion quid). Hee hee.

This really got us in the office going. In their dark hour, how could we do other than help out the Conservatives with a few ideas of our own for future posters in this series? Our favourites were: Tony & John, featuring a lavatory down which Britain's prospects would disappear; Tony & Mike, with a microphone and an attack on sound-bite politics; Tony & Nick, depicting a crumbling prison - complete with escaping murderers ; Tony & Jerry, indicating a Britain in thrall to Helmut Kohl and his Eurofederalists; and - finally (only if all else is failing and Labour is still 20 per cent ahead on April 30th) - Tony & Dick.

As I was faxing these ideas to my friends at Central Office, I caught a BBC bulletin concerning the engagement of William Hague, the 35-year- old Secretary of State for Wales, to one Ffion Jenkins. Ms Jenkins (who has just - in my opinion - become affianced to the next Conservative Prime Minister) apparently taught Mr Hague the words of Sospan Fach. She, it was said, "enlightened him on a windy hillside in North Wales". I feel an affinity for Mr Hague; in 1976 I was also enlightened by a young woman on a hill above Llandudno during a National Union of Students conference. It was at once the hottest and coldest experience I have ever had. Pob luc, William bach!

Then, just before I went into the Chamber, SkyNews showed a picture of some schoolchildren and the reporter's voice spoke of "five-year-olds facing tanks and curfews". On the day that the Government announced its proposals for dealing with juvenile crime, this was ominous, to say the least. Would Jack Straw hold a press conference, and argue that tanks were insufficiently robust, and that sowing land-mines outside schools would deter truancy more effectively? I pointed this out to a colleague. "Not tanks, idiot," she said affectionately, "tags !" Tags for five-year- olds? And I thought the world had gone mad! What a relief!

I wasn't the only happy bunny in the House. Labour MPs were - understandably - very mellow. Every time a marginal Tory stood up they waved at him and sang "bye-bye" in funny little voices. And they want to lock five-year- olds up!

What was odder, however, was that the Prime Minister should be in such a relaxed, almost valedictory mood. Tony needled him concerning the mal mots of Mr Health Secretary Decibel. Shouldn't Decibel be attending personally to the crisis in the Health Service (a frightening thought this, Decibel in surgical mask yelling "NURSE! SCALPEL!!!"), rather than creating a crisis in the Cabinet? No, replied Mr Major mildly, Decibel "has been an outstanding Health Secretary". But a disastrous leadership candidate, he didn't add.

As Ben Chapman, victor of Wirral, was led to sign his name in the members' book and the Opposition waved their order papers (I blame the parents), Mr Major gave the new MP a hearty handshake and left the Chamber, smiling; more relaxed than I have seen him for months. Or resigned, perhaps? But when I last spotted Mr Chapman, he was wandering about behind the Speaker's chair, looking lost, - a metaphor for the political moment.