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5 AUGUST 2006: Ministers are forever saying, "Doing nothing is not an option." But Jack Straw appears to be recommending masterly inactivity over Lords reform. He has a paper in front of the PM suggesting that abolishing the remaining hereditaries would encounter stiff resistance (as it did last time) and create more problems than it would solve.

The House of Lords is a constitutional pottage. It's made up of appointed life peers, Law Lords, bishops and 92 hereditary nobles.  These hereditaries, by a recent quirk, are the only elected element of the Chamber. There is no rhyme or reason for the way the place is constituted, but it's doing extraordinary well in revising hastily-drafted legislation and standing up for British liberties.

If Jack Straw devises some solution to delay, obfuscate and do nothing (the most important expertise for Leaders of the House) he will get bonus points.

Robin Cook died a year ago. It's hard to imagine him in the same cabinet as . . . Hazel Blears. He was of very superior timber to the current softwood cash-crop.

Two things: At the beginning of Blair's wobble in 2004, Cook told a colleague of mine that he'd be back in the cabinet by Christmas. As later publicity revealed, he'd patched up his feud with Gordon Brown and had, presumably, been approached. There are those who deny Blair's wobble ever took place, so it's a useful little glimpse.

Second: I had lunch with him not long before he resigned, towards the end of February 2003, I think (he went on March 17th, a couple of days before the invasion). I expressed some misgivings about war with Iraq, on the obvious grounds. He reassured me that all would be well. It would be over very quickly, and that the allies would be greeted as liberators. He wasn't gung-ho on Weapons of Mass Destruction, it was more to chime with his "ethical dimension to foreign policy". He also said something about the sectarian nature of the country but I've forgotten it.

His final words were very memorable, however: "If you repeat any of this I'll kill you." Death cancels the obligation, I feel.