The cinnamon club is an up market Indian restaurant next door to the department for education, just across the road from Westminster Abbey.  At 300 yards or so, it is one of the closest restaurants to the House of Commons. Once, it had a Michelin star.

At any sitting, its large, airy dining room will be more than smattered with political big fish, their media parasites and the big business interests who put the oxygen in the tank.

At breakfast, while the ladies who lunch are still painting their nails, the political wildlife are the only ones there.

This morning was typical.  Steve Richards of the Independent was with John Pienaar of the BBC.  Anyone who knows Pienaar will not be surprised that he was wolfing a full English.  Richards, still digesting a big lunch in the House of Commons with David Miliband yesterday, was more restrained. (more…)