After a summer of sporting glory, might Britain punch above its weight in the intellectual Olympics, aka the Nobel Prizes? Team GB has landed 17 Nobels since 2000, among them Sir John Gurdon, who won the prize for physiology or medicine this week.

I have a confession to make that will destroy what cred I ever had. I loved the Spice Girls. When my daughters were small, they would sit glued to the box watching the glammy, glitzy airheads. I was gutted when I couldn't come with them to a concert, but I did make it to a Destiny's Child gig.

The fun-loving comedian Steve Coogan must have been feeling rather pleased with himself when he got the chance to twist the knife into his vanquished foes at the News of the World last Friday night. The comic put in an entertaining turn on BBC2's Newsnight and, such was his antipathy towards the tabloid's former hack Paul McMullan, the old charmer even admirably managed not to be distracted by presenter Emily Maitlis's critically acclaimed calves throughout.

Political plotting is harder in an open-plan office. After three decades, the Liberal Democrats are to quit the wood-panelled rabbit warren of their Cowley Street headquarters for minimalist offices in one of the most exclusive streets in Westminster.

David Cameron was today urged to distance himself from the "deeply personalised" attacks against Nick Clegg by the No to AV campaign.

After being reminded that John Cleese can understandably take exception to ill-founded fears his funny bone may have been surgically removed in recent years, I would like to place on record the confident belief his best work could still be ahead of him. (Just pretend it's some other bloke in those rubbish AA adverts). Now the old boy proudly informs us that he wouldn't still be plain old Mr Cleese to you and I, if he had seen fit to accept a peerage from Paddy Ashdown back in 1999.

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.

Nick Clegg earned plaudits from the former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown for his masochistic decision to appear in a television debate with an audience of 20 students.

When did the Lords get so dull? Maybe there was more to the hereditary principle than we thought. They still limp, hobble and doze in their attractive way – I feel more and more sympathetic towards them – but last night all the argument fell out on party lines and no one said anything unexpected. That's not right, is it? Paddy Ashdown made the best speech – that's what today's House of Lords is like.

The man responsible for overseeing huge spending cuts admitted last night that there was still a "long way to go" to reach a deal over where they would be made.

Neither Liberals nor Liberal Democrats have much of a record winning seats from Labour in the North of England.

The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition suffered a major blow tonight as David Laws was forced to resign over expenses abuse allegations.

David Laws was embroiled in a damaging row over his expenses last night after it emerged that he had handed his long-term partner tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money.