Dale on BBC News 24

Let me see. John Reid. Prisons. Prison places. Crime. Judges. Iain gets in sly mention of Labour emails. Catholics and gay adoption. Iain's haircut (neither more nor less along UKIP lines). John Reid. Iain's accomplice states that most Home Secretaries get in trouble but that Reid is a man who is doing something i.e. proposing and hopefully enacting a split. If all this fuss is stopping him being a leadership contender then hallelujah. His speech in Manchester was scary. "Be afraid, be very afraid" said one NEC member to me shortly afterward. But the job is like that.

I shook Reid's hand once when we were both on Dimbleby. Me waving at David D frantically from the audience. JR batting back bouncers and wides on both the Madrid Bombing and the NHS with aplomb. In the Green Room we discussed a magazine article which happened to have a bulldog as a motif. Reid noticed and folded the ugly dog away carefully. Almost as if he thought I was trying to stitch him up. No way, I hadn't seen the opportunity! I have the only photos that exist of this mutual Mugabe moment. mMm.

My retired-before-he-started lucky-to-be-alive greyhound Jim (below) was not impressed. And rescued-as-pups lurchers Ottey and Hooch actually left the room at the sight of the big cheque, I mean check, that Dale was bearing with no obvious sign of shame.