A LABOUR MP, unable to control his glee, told me a wonderful anecdote about Education Secretary Charles Clarke. With the sun shining and the long summer recess fast approaching, he called his ministers and their aides to a meeting.

Mr Clarke, who does not disguise his love of a good claret, wanted to give them a friendly warning. If, for any reason, they were to go to the Terrace bar for a relaxing drink they should be extra careful.

"Silly season" - when hacks have nothing to do or write about - is upon us, he said, and a careless remark could be spun out of all proportion. Those receiving this advice managed to keep a straight face but were stunned and highly amused. They rarely, if ever, go boozing in public.

Mr Clarke, on the other hand, is no stranger to a dust-up on the Terrace.

Last summer he memorably addressed one female reporter with a very colourful phrase containing four letters - three consonants and a vowel.

The irony, the MP pointed out, was delicious. But Mr Clarke had a point - silly season was well and truly underway. Few were being sillier than Paul Tyler, a Liberal Democrat who takes his constituency duty to the extreme.

This is normally manifested in his shocking yellow and black socks - the official Cornish colours - which he wears proudly beneath half-mast trousers.

But he properly lost the plot over an innocent mistake by GNER, which was accused of "cheap tricks" for using the picturesque Cornish coastline in a newspaper advert.

Agreed, the view of the "delights of the GNER railway" was, in fact, Stepper Point, viewed across the mouth of the Camel Estuary from Pentire Point. But did it really warrant a letter to chief executive Christopher Garnett to demand an explanation for the blunder?

In the real world, GNER's explanation would have been accepted and raised a smile. (After saying the newspaper ad represented a "subtle attempt to demonstrate our expansionist aspirations", a spokesman said: "It was unintentional, but on a clear day you can see for miles from our trains - but probably not that far!")

However Mr Tyler, nothing less than his party's shadow leader of the Commons, fumed: "That is not funny. It could be considered a deliberate deception, worthy of a complaint to the Advertising Authority."

He added: "Of course, everyone knows the North Cornish Coast is uniquely dramatic and beautiful in the whole United Kingdom.

"It beats me why the company thought it could get away with this cheap trick. We have had recent examples of the headland at Newquay passed off by a travel company as a scene in Spain, but this is just outrageous."

For Heaven's sake man, get a grip! At least he now has a seven-week holiday to recover his senses. Home Office officials have no such luck. They have to carry on working, and let's hope they use the time to come up with some better descriptions for the social backgrounds of crime victims.

Instead of the old system of A, B, C1, C2 etc, according to this week's crime figures for 2002/3, we now have categories such as "aspiring", "settling", "rising", "thriving" and - bottom of the pile - "striving". It's enough to drive a person to drink, so enjoy the rest of the summer. I'm off to the Terrace.

Parliament is now in recess until September 8. James Slack returns on September 12.

Updated: 10:44 Friday, July 18, 2003