Rumours are circulating around Westminster tonight that New Labour has brought in the image consultants and is going to create a new brand before the next election.

A Labour insider said: "New Labour has been around as an identity for fifteen years now and people are thinking that it's time to modernise again. The obvious choice would ordinarily be New New Labour, but people are clearly growing tired of novelty."

The insider went on: "The high command are apparently toying with: British Bonuses for British People (The Environment Notwithstanding) Party. However, it is hoped that Labour's PR agency will come up with something snappier."

Watch this space.

The government was forced to deny today that it was 'trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.'

Many commentators have suggested that the government, currently denying that it will have to make cuts after the next election, is being somewhat 'off balance sheet' with the truth.

Westminster watchers generally acknowledge that, were the wool to be pulled over the eyes of the electorate, then Britain would effectively become a 'Kingdom of the Blind'. Were that to happen then it is perhaps fair to say that the 'one-eyed man' (Gordon Brown) would become King.

"But that's not going to happen," announced a Government spokesman.

It is now alleged that Michael Jackson's death may have been caused by excessive consumption of grapefruit juice. This contains an enzyme that can exacerbate the effects of his beloved Pethidine (dope).

The government must act immediately and release the following health warning: "Junkies!! Don't drink grapefuit juice!"

In the debate about MPs and their second jobs one of the key arguments in defence of these jobs is that experience of the 'real' world will be useful to the MPs when they are in government.

It will therefore inspire confidence that the second job of shadow transport minister Robert Goodwill is 'cemetery owner'.

As bus conductors used to say, "Room for one more inside."

The BBC producer Adam Curtis is putting the finishing touches to a film that bemoans the increasing dominance of individuality and the death of the 'grand narratives'.

"What we now have is a cacophany of individual narratives, everyone wants to be the author of their own lives no one wants to be part of a bigger story... But you need a collective, not individual narrative to achieve change," explains Curtis.

He is optimistic however. A grand new narrative - with the capacity to generate the common narratives of idealism and morality - will emerge that might bring reinvigorated moral purpose.

A spokesman for the BBC later emphasised the following (presumably): Adam Curtis is not denying that 'individualism' and 'the free market'  are themselves effectively narratives - Nothing could be further from the truth... And conversely, the viewing public should remember that Curtis's film is not itself part of any 'grand narrative'. His opinions and his outlook are his own and in no way reflect the views of the Corporation as a whole.