A cross-party attempt to ban the use of hybrid human-animal embryos for scientific research was rejected by the Commons tonight. MPs voted 336 to 176 (a majority of 160) against the move led by Tory former minister Edward Leigh.

Good grief, the Prime Minister's bad at arguing. He just asserts things. And any old thing that comes to mind. I'm going to invite him home and let him win an argument with my... I'm not sure exactly... if I turn my food processor on to medium, he'd beat that, you'd think? He'd keep up, at least?

MP payments scandal! It's not declared in the Members' Register but Harriet Harman gouges money from the public purse every month in the form of "a salary"! Pathetic joke, it's the best I can come up with after an hour of listening to her.

Reservists from the armed forces suffering from psychiatric problems after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered official medical help, the Government announced in a major policy shift yesterday.

Glenda Jackson: The Biography By Chris Bryant, Harpercollins, pounds 16.99

Sir: We welcome the Government's determination to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into British law through the Human Rights Bill, now moving into its committee stage in the House of Commons. The Human Rights Act will be a keystone in creating a more just and equitable society.

The audience for political biography has shrunk for reasons deeper than stiff competition from studies of Posh Spice or the footballer David Beckham

THE NEW ESTABLISHMENT Day ten The fixers If the going gets tough for Prime Minister Blair, he'll need well-connected, heavyweight help. By Peter Popham

Sir: Christian Socialism, you imply (leading article, 22 March), is doomed. Methodism, and Church attendance, is on the decline and the broad tradition into which Tony Blair has tapped has "no social basis". Yet in the last two months nearly 2,000 new members have joined the Christian Socialist Movement. You allude to the old adage that the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than to Marx, yet the first Christian Socialists were Anglicans, not Methodists, and Roman Catholics in Britain, from Cardinal Manning and John Wheatley through to today, have been vital in outlining the parameters of a "civic Christianity".

The fast-growing Movement for Christian Democracy seems obsessed with just one issue. Paul Routledge reports

Sir: As A. H. Halsey points out, politics is a moral endeavour and ethical socialism and Christian socialism will always be close allies ('Where is the spirit of our age?', 8 July). They are not, however, simply interchangeable.

BRITAIN'S exit from the exchange rate mechanism 'must be in the best interests' of the housing market, according to Chris Bryant, chairman of Bryant Group. But he added: 'with the economy in the doldrums, the outlook is bleak'.'

Mental distraction was offered yesterday for the upper echelons of Harland Simon, the control systems company whose shares remain suspended at 20p (year's high: 653p) and which implemented pay cuts after a small problem with working capital. The 3.30 at Nottingham, the Harland Simon Claiming Handicap, boasted prize money of pounds 3,000, half of which was put up by the company.