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ANDREW PIERCE: Tory favourite pays £45,000 for Prime Minister's speech

Published: 20:08 EST, 14 December 2014 | Updated: 04:46 EST, 15 December 2014

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David Rowland made the highest bid of the night at a small gathering of Tory supporters at Christie's auction house hosted by the Prime Minister

Back in 2010, David Cameron was embarrassed when his choice of Tory Treasurer, David Rowland, resigned before he even took up the post.

Rowland, a property developer, had agreed to be Treasurer after moving from his Guernsey redoubt, where he had lived as a tax exile for more than 30 years.

Worth £730 million, he quit after this newspaper shed light on some of his controversial property deals which led to him being dubbed a 'shady' financier in the Commons.

Yet Rowland is clearly back in favour. Last week, he was on the guest list for a small gathering of Tory supporters at Christie's auction house hosted by the Prime Minister and his wife Samantha.

Rowland made the highest bid of the night, £45,000, for an autographed copy of Cameron's recent speech on immigration and a book of signed political cartoons. What company Cameron keeps!

Also present was Christopher Moran, who's been censured several times by the London Stock Exchange for a series of controversial share purchases. Moran holds the dubious privilege of being the first person to be debarred by Lloyd's of London.

Little wonder a flustered Lord Feldman, the joint Tory chairman, praised Sotheby's not Christie's in his vote of thanks.

This year's worst Christmas present idea?

The Left-wing Respect MP George Galloway has put a note on his website inviting people to buy his book The Quotable Galloway: From Alcohol To Zionism, for £9.99 as a gift 'for your loved one this Christmas'.

After ghastly Russell Brand was given free rein to spout his infantile opinions on Question Time, Labour MP Ian Austin's tweet spoke for many: 'The idea we have to pay the licence fee for this total and utter garbage...What a terrible programme. Just terrible.'

Russell Brand was given free rein to spout his infantile opinions on last week's Question Time

Bucking a trend in political reminiscences, Dennis Skinner's recent autobiography, Sailing Close To The Wind, is selling well.

The 82-year-old Tory baiter certainly knows a thing or two about sailing close to the wind. In a Commons debate, the Labour MP they call the Beast of Bolsover provoked uproar when he said: 'Half the Tories opposite are crooks.'

Told to retract, he retorted: 'OK, half the Tories opposite aren't crooks.'

Baroness Jenkin, who merely said what many people think about the poor having lost traditional cooking skills, was savaged by Labour MPs.

They sneered after a photo appeared of her working in a kitchen next to a sign that said 'caterer's fridge'. It wasn't her fridge! Jenkin was cooking for the charity Live Below The Line, which helps people to live on food for five days on a fiver, in a kitchen in the House of Lords.

Will those Labour MPs apologise? Of course not.

Stephen Kinnock, son of failed Labour leader Neil, is set to enter Parliament next year as MP for the safe seat of Aberavon.

Kinnock Jnr says: 'I think that diversity is diverse and that means a range of different things. I do think diversity is also about our professional backgrounds and where we're coming from and what we can contribute in terms of our experience and it's really important that the Labour Party has good connections into the private sector and understands where business is coming...'

Welsh windbaggery clearly runs in the family.

Stephen Kinnock, son of failed Labour leader Neil, pictured with wife and Denmark Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is set to enter Parliament next year as MP for the safe seat of Aberavon

Commons quips flew thick and fast after Ukip's Roger Bird insisted he'd had an affair with party member Natasha Bolter, who denied it. My favourite (printable) one? 'Only Ukip can have a sex scandal in which no one knows whether they had sex.'

On his LBC phone-in, Nick Clegg said he was confident 'the majority of our 56 MPs' will be returned after the 2015 election. There are 57 Lib Dem MPs, but then Clegg never was one for detail.

Barring an electoral earthquake, Boris Johnson will be the Tory MP for Uxbridge, West London, next year.

Kit Malthouse, deputy London Mayor for business and enterprise, will become an MP in the safe seat of North-West Hampshire.

Johnson's salary from the public purse will be £215,000 as he will continue to serve as London Mayor until 2016, while Malthouse's combined pay package will be £194,000 as he isn't standing down from the London Assembly either.

As they will both be earning more than the Prime Minister's £142,500, shouldn't they both quit their lucrative part-time London jobs to concentrate on their constituencies?

Or don't Tories do the honour-able thing any more?