The increasingly bitter AV campaign spilled over into Government business for the first time today after Chris Huhne raised Conservative tactics in a meeting of the Cabinet.

The former Labour leader Neil Kinnock today launches an outspoken attack on senior colleagues in his party who have campaigned with the Conservatives against reforming Britain's voting system.

David Cameron is to take the unprecedented step of joining senior Labour politicians to campaign against the alternative vote, in the clearest sign yet that the No camp fears it could be defeated in next month's referendum.

The "no" campaign for the voting system referendum next year suffered embarrassment today when it was first forced to remove a Cabinet Minister from its list of supporters and then wrongly claimed he was opposed to the switch to the Alternative Vote.

Opponents of electoral reform suffered embarrassment last night after wrongly claiming that a senior Cabinet minister would play a prominent role in the drive for a "no" vote in next year's referendum.

When it comes to keeping your family close, Ian Liddell-Grainger, a blue-blooded distant relative of the Queen, could teach other MPs a trick or two.

Labour's new leader will be able to hire and fire his or her shadow cabinet under radical reforms drawn up by the former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett.

Last year, the Tricycle Theatre scored a notable hit with The Great Game, a cycle of short plays about Afghanistan. Women, Power and Politics follows the same model, exploring the titular subject from many angles through nine specially commissioned short plays, written exclusively by female dramatists and interspersed with verbatim vignettes derived from interviews with contemporary politicians.

Today's surprise defeat of the Government over a clause in the Parliamentary Standards Bill could be only the first sign of trouble. This law has been drafted in haste, and it shows. The issue over which such Unusual Suspects as John Reid and Margaret Beckett rebelled is not the only problem with the Bill.