As the BBC airs intimate conversations, project deviser Tony Phillips finds he is deeply moved

A hardy band of demonstrators gathered outside the Commons yesterday to protest about a government Bill that did not exist, and cheered when told it had been withdrawn, which it had not.

Labour's former deputy leader Lord Prescott today said it was "time for change" in the party's relations with the trade unions.

England have fixed their sights on becoming the world's No 1 Test team – and sooner rather than later.

The former deputy prime minister John Prescott has reaffirmed his nickname "Two Jabs" by appearing in a TV advert for a price comparison website in which he takes his frustrations out on a punchbag.

John Prescott's office authorised spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on "indoor plant landscaping" and "silver service" waiters when he was Deputy Prime Minister.

Nice to hear from John – sorry, Lord – Prescott again, even if it is with a disappointing denial that he had anything to do with a rather expensive contract for his former department, stipulating "indoor plant landscaping", "silver service" and the maintenance of "healthy and vigorous plants with a weed-free appearance". We are happy to accept his insistence that he had better things to do than oversee his indoor landscaping, preferring to leave it to his civil servants. But there's nothing at all to be ashamed of. Such standards are surely no more than we all aspire to, even if we lack the means to attain them. Should not "weed-free" be a statutory national requirement, anywhere and everywhere?

A Labour MP today spoke of how he "wrestled" a man to the floor in "self defence" inside the Houses of Parliament.

On that sad day when circumstances compelled Radio 2 to replace Jonathan Ross on Saturday mornings, it looked around and its gaze quite naturally fell on Graham Norton. He was, in many ways, the obvious choice. Norton is a proven talent as well as a warm, genuinely likeable personality. Of all Radio 2's DJs, he's the one I'd most want to get trapped in a lift with. But given the brilliant, inventive extemporising with which Jonathan Ross used to kick off the weekend, Norton's new show, which started this week, felt totally... safe.

An unpopular bus lane on a busy motorway, introduced by John Prescott in 1999, is to be scrapped.

An unpopular bus lane on a busy motorway, introduced by the former Transport Secretary John Prescott in 1999, is to be scrapped, it was revealed today.

The Prince of Wales was baffled by John Prescott's habit of balancing a teacup and saucer on his stomach, Tony Blair reveals in his memoirs.