A busy day back in the office. A morning run and then to my desk to run through the familiar routine of papers, correspondence and emails. At midday I headed to No 10 for a sandwich lunch with a number of MPs. There we met with the PM's chief staff officer former MP Gavin Barwell, a good man, who is doing his utmost to improve communication between No 10 and backbenchers. Clearly, our 45 minute session is confidential, but we all raised a number of issues, which were duly noted. The PM came into the Cabinet Room at the end for about 10 minutes and it was good to see her. Then it was back to the Commons to vote for members of all the committees before heading over to the BBC offices for an interview with my former employer South Today. They were reporting on the new commercial helicopter company that has moved on to the former SAR base on Portland. Clearly I am delighted as we have all worked for some three years to make this happen. It means that the skills and jobs will remain on the island and a base that has seen helicopters fly out of it for decades will continue to do so. Then in the Chamber there were a number of statements: update on EU negotiations, Grenfell Tower and N Korea. I sat through all three and contributed to two. David Davis led the first one and told us all how negotiations were going. Labour, which is now doing all it can to prevent Brexit, remained sceptical throughout. Then Sajid Javid explained where they were following this appalling fire. Following investigations on tower blocks, we heard that cladding on 165 buildings had failed. Mr Javid urged all private owners of similar blocks to submit samples for testing. He ended by recounting the extraordinary story of 16 year old Ines Alves, who lost her family home in the fire but went on to receive a string of top grades in her GCSEs. Finally, the Foreign Secretary made a statement on N Korea. He was on fine form and gave an excellent account of himself. I asked whether this dramatic increase in threat should send a warning order to NATO countries to meet their defence spending commitment. "Spot on," came the reply. N Korea is a worry, obviously, and we must deal with this rogue state with a cool and calm head. The military option must be the very last resort. Then, as we sat late, an email came through from one of my team to say that 14 people had been trapped in the tower attraction in Weymouth and had to be rescued by helicopter. The trapped people were in no immediate danger and the crew of the SAR helicopter did a wonderful job in getting them all down safely. The House finally rose at about 2115 and I headed home for some beans!