Cheryl Cole is backed by Louis Walsh for X Factor comeback

Louis Walsh, her old pal, is fighting her corner for a place beside him on the next series of the British edition of the talent show. I want Cheryl back, he tells Mandrake at the Brits after-party hosted by Sony in Mayfair. Shes a great judge and I miss her. I think the public feel the same.

Coles departure from the American X Factor did not come as a complete surprise. Cat Deeley, who has herself enjoyed some success across the Pond, had told me: As a Brit, I understand her perfectly, but I dont know how Americans will do.

After his latest well-publicised trip on the London Underground, I have a report of a sighting of the Prime Minister on the one-class London to Aylesbury line travelling incognito with his daughter, Nancy, on Friday. They alighted at Great Missenden, not far from Chequers.

I disclosed in 2005 how aides to Lord Prescott, when he was the deputy prime minister, once had two pensioners bumped down to economy on the Cheltenham to Newcastle service so that he and his entourage could be accommodated in first.

Romance is dead

Louis de Bernires is a modest chap. Currently promoting the film adaptation of his book, Red Dog, the author is asked if the romantic novel is a dying art form.

We havent had a great romantic novel for a very long time, too long, he tells Mandrake. The forms not necessarily dead, but its dying. Thousands of romantic novels are pumped out every year, but one has to combine these stories with art. And that hasnt happened for many, many years, not since Captain Corellis Mandolin was published, anyway.

The 57-year-old British novelist was, of course, the author of that work.