Too busy to think, too busy to talk...

Lobbydog called an old friend yesterday to see how life is since she left the Westminster bubble.

When Ms Hewitt picked up she was in a mini-cab on the way to a meeting. It was a cordial conversation for ten seconds or so.

It was around then that I asked whether she would be taking her “resettlement grant”. The last time I asked her about it was before the election when she said she’d been “too busy” to think about it.

The grant, a cool £54,000 in Hewitt’s case, is meant to tide MPs over while they relocate from Westminster and find another job – indeed, while they “resettle”.

But I couldn’t help but feel that Patricia seems awfully resettled already – she holds jobs with Boots, BT, Cinven, Barclays Capital and Eurostar.

She held all but the Eurostar position while she was still an MP in fact, so no wonder she’s been so busy; but back to the mini-cab.

Having been asked whether she would take the grant the former member for Leicester West suddenly said she’d arrived at her destination and had to rush into a meeting and that she would call me back.

She hasn’t yet, but she is very busy after all.