How to explain John Bercow’s enthusiasm for appearing on prime time television? In the past few months, he has been spotted on both The Weakest Link and The Wheel. A Labour insider gets in touch with the answer: apparently he is preparing the ground for a possible tilt at running to be Mayor of London.

The incumbent Sadiq Khan hinted in January that he might stand for a third term when the election is held in just over two years’ time in May 2024. But if he does not, Bercow, the former Commons speaker, stands ready to enter the contest for the Labour nomination, possibly in a straight fight with London MP David Lammy, who already has his own LBC radio show. Orderrrrrr!

Tom Stoppard needs recognition

Oscar-winning writer Tom Stoppard was barely recognised when he attended the opening of The Collaboration at London’s Young Vic theatre.

Kwame Kwei-Armah, who directed the play, which charts the relationship between the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, played by Paul Bettany, bounced up to guests he knew and gave them big hugs. But he overlooked the presence of Stoppard who sat with his wife, Sabrina Guinness.

At one point Kwei-Armah even trotted in Stoppard’s direction, only to greet a large man next to him instead. Perhaps Britain’s greatest living playwright needs to start wearing a name tag?

Civil servants keep shtum on Hancock CCTV leaker

Remember the leak inquiry into the CCTV footage of Matt Hancock embracing his then-adviser Gina Coladangelo in his Whitehall office? The Department of Health and Social Care may have found the leaker – but if they have, will not tell us who it is.

Officially an inquiry is still ongoing. But asked who was the leaker in a Freedom of Information request, the DHSC replied that while it “holds information relevant to your request” it is being withheld “for the protection of personal information”. The department adds that the legislation “prohibits a public body from disclosing personally identifiable information, as doing so would contravene data protection principles”. But why the need to keep shtum?

Toff’s mutt leaves his mark

A lively cocker spaniel owned by Georgia “Toff” Toffolo, the bubbly friend of “first father” Stanley Johnson, is causing a ruckus near her Chelsea home. Toff tells me how “the worst thing ever just happened to me” after she took her pooch to a nearby branch of Zara “and he cocked his leg on a pair of black trousers”. Despite it only being “the tiniest bit of wee”, she says she grabbed them and took them to the till. “So I’ve just had to go and buy a pair of black trousers that I didn’t want. I am not happy. It was £27.99 that I didn’t need to spend, but luckily they are a small size so hopefully I can wear them.”

As long as she remembers to wash them first, of course.

Portrait of a PM

Good news for Boris Johnson: the Carlton Club has commissioned a portrait of the Prime Minister by the renowned royal portraitist Richard Stone.

There is no word yet on whether Johnson has sat for Stone, whose paintings can sell for tens of thousands of pounds. His admired portrait of former Tory leader Michael Howard now hangs in the Cabinet room of the club, which is the spiritual home of the Conservative Party.

Every Tory leader is given the honour of a portrait to hang in the halls of the Carlton Club in London’s St James’s. David Cameron’s portrait is in the hall. And even Theresa May has been given a portrait – which just goes to show that its members are a forgiving bunch as the memories of the years of Brexit chaos fade.

Daniel Day-Lewis finishes his lines

Another reason why Hollywood needs Daniel Day-Lewis back from retirement. Speaking at a screening of his new film Licorice Pizza, the director Paul Thomas Anderson reminisced about how the three-times Oscar-winning actor inhabited the character of a fastidious couturier called Reynolds Woodcock in his movie Phantom Thread to the extent that he helped to finish the script.

“When I didn’t know what Reynolds would say or do in any given scene, I could just turn to Daniel and ask him,” Anderson cheerily recalls.

Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope, the Telegraph’s chief political correspondent and the author of the daily Chopper’s Politics newsletter. You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk