ANDREW PIERCE: As he plods painfully through his six questions, there is an embarrassed silence on the Labour benches. Some Labour MPs say there is a way out.

ANDREW PIERCE: Tears pouring down my cheeks, I posted the letter to Mum and Dad. I had finally owned up to myself that I was gay. My parents were staunch, working-class Catholics.

ANDREW PIERCE: John Bercow is reeling from allegations of foot-stamping bullying by David Leakey. His chances of a peerage 'are now zero', a senior Commons official has revealed.

Four men and two women, will today sit in judgment in an anonymous office in the Whitehall edifice that houses the Treasury on the most contentious set of peerage nominations for a generation.

Despite being repeatedly tipped as a 'prime minister-in-waiting' since entering the House of Commons less than five years ago, Rishi Sunak has always been better known in India than Britain.

ANDREW PIERCE: Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott yesterday ruled out serving in the Shadow Cabinet of the next Labour leader.

ANDREW PIERCE: Jack Straw - Tony Blair's first Home Secretary - revealed what Lord Baker, Home Secretary in Sir John Major's government from 1990-92, had told him when he took up the role.

ANDREW PIERCE: Home Secretary Priti Patel was defended last week in a statement by 100 allies, including election guru Sir Lynton Crosby and William Shawcross, former chief of the Charity Commission.

ANDREW PIERCE: In an interview with student newspaper Varsity in 2002, when he was chairman of the Labour group at Cambridge University, he backed the UK joining the euro.

ANDREW PIERCE: Sunak's bold measures to tackle the economic devastation threatened by the coronavirus has found him allies in unexpected places.

ANDREW PIERCE: Social media posts can be ever so revealing. Who is the unlikeliest fan of ­Labour's new leader Sir Keir Starmer?

ANDREW PIERCE - Trust rust is key when talking about ambitious ministers who might one day fancy a permanent shot at the top job. He may be wooden, but Dominic Raab has Boris Johnson's backing.

ANDREW PIERCE - After her recent letter to the Times, Lady Marland has now left her husband, peer Lord Jonathan Marland with quite a conundrum to deal with regarding his personal wealth.

ANDREW PIERCE: As countries across Europe start to ease themselves out of lockdown, there is a growing recognition in Boris Johnson's Cabinet that it, too, will have to make some hard decisions

ANDREW PIERCE: Most politicians need a brass neck to survive in the Westminster jungle. But former Labour energy minister Lord Truscott is in a league of his own.

ANDREW PIERCE: Sir Keir Starmer managed to find a place in his Shadow Cabinet for onetime 'Continuity Corbyn' candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Like every Sandhurst cadet, Prince Harry had the age-old maxim drummed in to him throughout his military training: time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

ROBERT HARDMAN: The crowd went bonkers, giving her a proper A-list, rock star welcome. Among a tearful few - Greta's most ardent devotees - this was nothing short of a Second Coming.

ROBERT HARDMAN: It was a case of grin and bear it. Meghan beamed away all afternoon to the point of facial exhaustion. The duke's mind frequently appeared to wander at Westminster.

ROBERT HARDMAN: As we confront the gravest national and global crisis since World War II, it is our shopkeepers who are rapidly emerging as one of the principal bulwarks against downright anarchy.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Yesterday, churches up and down the land stood empty on what should have been one of the busier days of the year - Mothering Sunday.

ROBERT HARDMAN: In the coronavirus crisis, we need ventilators. Nick Grey - founder of Worcester-based appliance manufacturer Gtech - has invented a prototype.

ROBERT HARDMAN: The Prince of Wales has become the world's most high-profile Covid-19 patient to date. But despite the inevitable concerns, he is said to be in good spirits and 'up and about'.

ROBERT HARDMAN: We are now almost numb to the pace of daily developments. The graph lines of infection and mortality grow steeper as the global situation verges on the Biblical.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Here are two nations of comparable size. Both have a long and proud history of medical excellence and both are home to international pharmaceutical giants.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Yesterday morning could not have got off to a more harrowing start as Michelle Fay arrived to take over from the night shift.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Thus it was that the Prince of Wales opened the 4,000-bed Nightingale Hospital in east London yesterday - while sitting in his armchair in deepest Aberdeenshire.

ROBERT HARDMAN: There is, quite simply, no one else in Britain who could have delivered such a message with such unimpeachable authority.

Vera Lynn, pictured, was named personality of the century in a nationwide poll, and Robert Hardman announced the Daily Mail's campaign to get the whole of Britain to sing 'We will meet again' in unison.

The last time the Countess of Bradford wore a Stewart Parvin creation, it was on the day of her wedding. It was also a very different look from the Parvin ensemble she has been wearing this weekend.

ROBERT HARDMAN: As every false dawn turns to dusk; as every fresh promise - be it of testing kits or ventilators - falls short, so the cries grow louder: where is the Lord Beaverbrook of our times?

ROBERT HARDMAN: No peal of bells from an empty Westminster Abbey. No thunderous gun salutes from Hyde Park, the Tower of London, Edinburgh Castle or anywhere else.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Of all the last-minute cancellations caused by the ghastly coronavirus, one of the saddest is the great national gathering which we should all have been enjoying.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Across the NHS, the consumption of personal protective equipment - 'PPE' - is staggering yet seemingly unavoidable.

ROBERT HARDMAN: I have no doubt Sir Winston Churchill (pictured outside Downing Street in April 1945) would be equally moved by the magnificent response to the call to arms by Mail Force.

ROBERT HARDMAN: Reminding us of the central message of VE Day itself, the Queen declared: 'Never give up, never despair.'

Having read in the Sunday papers that, because of coronavirus, the over-60s should avoid routine visits to surgeries, I emailed my doctor to confirm that my annual medical check-up. would go ahead...

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Coronavirus is being blamed for the collapse of Flybe, despite the fact that the airline has been in trouble for years. The 2,000 staff who are out of work are rightly furious.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: If the BBC does summon the courage to revive Life On Mars, it should bring the show bang up to date and catapult Hunt forward in time to the present day.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: This is what it must have been like in 1940. Europe has fallen, the United States has gone into isolation and Britain stands alone.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Today's edition of You Couldn't Make It Up comes courtesy of Islamic State, which has advised jihadists to steer clear of Europe in case they catch coronavirus.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: After Boris Johnson declared that Britain is on a war footing, it may also be time to bring back the Home Guard. Let's cross live to Walmington-on-Sea, which is already in lockdown

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Trouble is, I still can't work out what's occurring. And what really bothers me is that I'm not particularly confident that anyone else has a clue, either.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN is giving readers an exclusive bootleg transcript of a conversation between Boris Johnson and Her Majesty The Queen, who seems to be quite concerned about how her dogs are fairing...

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Britain's top police officer, Met Commissioner Cressida Dick, yesterday promised that enforcement of the rules would be through persuasion, not punishment.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN The app is reported to use similar technology to that which allows men to send unsolicited pictures of their private parts to women sitting on the same bus.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN - Who could forget that famous photograph of Tom Watson at Glastonbury in 2017, looking like Super Mario's morbidly obese brother? Now, somehow, the music links return.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: We are all in this ­together. How many times have we heard that over the past few weeks?

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Scientists in Holland have worked out they can calculate the spread of the virus by studying sewage.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Only Fools And Horses has topped a poll of classic TV programmes being binge-watched by viewers seeking solace during the coronavirus crisis.