A lovely titbit of parliamentary idiosyncrasy from APIL’s House of Commons event last week. Romsey and Southampton North MP Caroline Nokes dropped by to hear from the claimant lobby and revealed she had just come from a meeting with a government minister.

‘He was sitting opposite me stroking a small dog on his lap. It was like spending an hour with Blofeld’ [except that was a cat]. Sadly, Nokes would not give the name of this dog-lover, but we’ll leave you to make your own political poodle jokes.