You might have already read about the 10 Downing Street gift shop failing to pass on the VAT cut: Now it emerges that the Cabinet War Rooms are having similar problems…

It may seem incredible to some. But the MP for Rushcliffe has changed his mind after two decades of refusing to use a mobile phone – to the frustration of anyone trying to get hold of him.

What’s more, he is now using a Blackberry. Or at least owns one. It appears that fellow Tories want Clarke to be instantly accessible now he is in the shadow cabinet. Wonders never cease.

Gordon Brown has made huge political capital out of his desire to reform the international system of bank regulation. This, he regularly implies, could have prevented the downturn. And it was something he has been arguing for (apparently) for over a decade.

Funny then that Lord Turner, chair of the Financial Services Authority, doesn’t agree. A line buried deep in today’s Times (from business editor David Wighton’s column) says “Turner….told me yesterday, international standards and better co-ordination would have made little difference to the course of the credit crisis. It would not have improved the Federal Reserve’s regulation of Citigroup or the FSA’s regulation of Northern Rock.”

Um, over to you Gordon?

I couldn’t get the PM himself. But the No 10 spokesman says: “It is widely accepted that there is a need for greater international co-operation, given the global nature of the international market. It was the prime minister’s view that we did need better global co-operation.”

Full marks to Baroness Royall, leader of the Lords, for announcing plans for a new law which could lead to Lords being suspended, expelled or even lose their title if they break the rules (albeit if the Tories and Lib Dems thought of it first).

But am I the only one feeling a little sceptical?

Lord Tyler, the excellent Lib Dem peer, tells me that he sat on a committee in 1999 (including various law Lords and others) which decided that there was an urgent need forstronger rules to suspend misbehaving Lords. Somewhere along the line it was kicked into the long grass.

“The committee sat for eighteen months,” he says with a sigh.

Peter Hain’s hopes of returning to a cabinet position won’t be helped by today’s report from the Commons’ committee on standards and privileges.

The report has stern words for Hain’s late registration of £103,000 in January of donations to his (unsuccessful) campaign to become deputy leader of Labour.

The failure was “serious and substantial“, it says. “We therefore recommend that Mr Hain apologise by means of a personal statement on the floor of the House.”

The committee accepts there was “no intention to deceive”. It takes into account Mr Hain’s apologies and the speed with which he rectified his omissions.

This is why the punishment is not heavier: “Because of the seriousness and scale of this breach and noting the considerable, justified public concern that it has created, we would ordinarily have been minded to propose a heavier penalty.”

The committee does not explore the most interesting element of the affair, which is that a good chunk of the money came from a think-tank (the “Progressive Policies Forum”) which had no address and never published anything.

(The CPS decided not to press charges in December).