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1200 Andrew welcomes our guest for the programme: Daily Telegraph columnist and former editor, Charles Moore.

1205 The PM insisted yesterday that Labour didn't suffer at the local elections in its traditional heartlands. Well, not quite: they lost big in Camden in North London, where the council had been held by the party for more than three decades. The Lib Dems took the biggest number of seats and the Tories and the Greens gained, too. Last week we visited the borough. Laura's returned to see if Labour and Tony Blair can pick up the pieces.

1210 In the old days, the machinery of Whitehall ground rather slowly. The creation of new government departments, for example, was extremely rare. But New Labour seem to have acquired a taste for reinvention. Years ago, there was the plain old Department for the Environment and the Department of Transport. Then under Tony Blair they were merged into the DETR - that's the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Then Environment became part of DEFRA; Transport went solo again and the Regions became the responsibility of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Are you keeping up? Because it's all changed again. With Mr Prescott being stripped of his ministerial responsibilities, the government has now created the Department for Communities and Local Government. That was unveiled to much fanfare this morning by the new Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly.
As you may have heard, Mr Prescott's lack of department is causing something of a fuss, because he's still entitled to two grace and favour residences and the usual perks and expenses along with his ministerial salary. We've been doing our sums. Mr Prescott's total cost to the taxpayer per year has been estimated at nearly �800,000: that's just over two grand a day.
So what are we getting for our money? We rang Mr Prescott's office this morning and they told us he'd be spending the day involved in "general government business" and "internal meetings" - and there was also the small matter of "finding a new office".

1212 Jenny asks Conservative spokesman Chris Grayling why they think the Deputy Prime Minister is struggling to justify his salary.

1215 We had a bit of a struggle finding anyone to defend John Prescott when we made some calls this morning. Most Labour MPs looked at their diaries and murmured something about "previous commitments" - so we're very grateful to Labour's Clive Betts for coming to the rescue. He tells us:

"I think actually taking a salary to oversee some of the important work on the energy review, environmental matters, local government and devolution is actually something which John Prescott is going to bring a lot of weight and experience to in terms of developing government policy and getting government departments to work together - and I think most people will welcome his role in that"

1219 Jenny talks to our friendly Labour Party historian Dr Brian Brivati, and asks him what the chances are of the rebels pulling off a coup.

1222 Andrew's joined by Labour MP John McDonnell, who heads the left-wing Campaign Group and the Labour Representation Committee.

1228 Your emails and questions for our guests.

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