Yes! to fairer votes. And fairer pay would be good
• Oh dear. Nick Clegg's call last week for "proper remuneration" of interns, and a widening of access to plum volunteer roles, may have landed him in hot water over his own parents' well-connected pals, but the message also appears to have failed to have reached party colleagues. We are directed to w4mp.org, "the site for everyone working for an MP", which lists more than 60 situations vacant in parliamentary and constituency offices and in public policy organisations where remuneration is not exactly what one would call a living wage or, indeed, a wage. Lewes Liberal Democrats seek a campaign intern, salary "none – reasonable expenses". Greg Mulholland MP requires a constituency office volunteer, on a "work experience only" basis. David Ward MP tells prospective parliamentary interns that "some expenses can be met by agreement". Meanwhile Yes! To Fairer Votes!, the AV referendum yes campaign taking up Clegg's own volunteer energies, seeks six interns to work for expenses only, more than the Conservative and Labour parties put together. What's that you say? Yes! To Fairer Pay!?
• From the Foreign Office, a press release titled "Visit to Gibraltar", the full text of which reads as follows: "The Right Honourable David Lidington MP, the minister of state for Europe, will be visiting Gibraltar on 12 and 13 April 2011. The minister said: 'I am very much looking forward to my first visit to Gibraltar.'" We are still reeling from that revelation when rumours emerge that the announcement has been withdrawn. "No, it was just sent to the wrong email distribution list," says a spokesman, emphasising that the trip is still going ahead despite the unwelcome leak. So the minister is standing by his comments? "Oh yes." Brave man.
• Sad news from Upper Bucklebury, childhood home of ma'am-to-be Kate Middleton: the minibus tours of the village and surroundings, taking in, among other formative locations, the church where she was baptised, the car park of her alma mater Marlborough, the Spar corner shop and, perplexingly, Stonehenge, have been cancelled. "We don't want to intrude too much locally," local firm Morton's Travel told Newbury Today. "Folk at Bucklebury are, in effect, our neighbours, we only put a small bus through their country lanes and we said: 'Enough is enough.'" But was that really the reason, or could it have been the criticism of the attraction as "A Tour de Farce" in the tabloid press? "I'm sick to the back teeth of it, to be honest," a Morton's insider tells us. "The whole thing got exploded out of all proportion [by the media]." The pit stop at Peaches Spar shop, where our future queen stocks up on her favourite Haribo Tangfastic sweets, was not because store owners Hash and Chan Shingadia had been invited to the wedding, but because his busload of hacks had wanted to stop to buy some food, he revealed, adding: "I'll be glad when the wedding's gone." Upper Bucklebury may agree.
• Which brings us to the Diary book of the week, a (very) occasional feature but one much beloved by readers, we have decided. There could be only one choice: Kate. Kate Middleton: Princess in Waiting, by Claudia Joseph, a woman for whom one can only have great sympathy since it has fallen to her to take the three or so known facts about you-know-who and stretch them to 268 pages. Truly it is an impressive piece of scholarship. We hear, for instance, from Dave Gunner, a former "lowly dispatcher" with British European Airways when Michael Middleton, Kate's father, was a "high-flying" young pilot. "My last memory of him is from when I went to Malta in 1975. He dispatched our Trident 3 aircraft." Lindsey Bishop, who started a mums and toddlers group at St Peter's church on Tuesday mornings, attended on occasions by Kate and younger sister Pippa, has this to offer: "It was a chance for the mums to meet other mums and chat, and for the children to meet other children and play." Audrey Needham, wife of the church warden, adds the following detail: "[Kate's] mother used to come along with the other mums and the children would play together. They would walk down the footpath to the church hall." More juicy nuggets about Kate tomorrow! By the end of the week you will feel as if you know her.