Gordon : "Shan't"

A reportedly depressed Gordon Brown is ruling out working with an SNP Government in Holyrood reports Radio Clyde. Gordon said he would have no truck with SNP leader Alex Salmond, even if Scottish voters make him First Minister.

The PM-to-be then had a hissy fit and stamped his feet saying "shan't, shan't, you can't make me..."

An extraordinary attitude.

New Blears Campaign T-Shirts Available

Guido has produced his own "Backing Blears" campaign T-shirts.

Available here for only a tenner!

Snouts in the Trough :Labour Peers' "Creeping Corruption"

The LibDem's Lord Oakeshott is complaining that Labour peers are ten times more likely than Tories to be coining it on government quangos. Labour has 211 peers after a decade of ermine sales by Sleazy Levy. The Tories have 203 and the LibDems 77 peers. This works out to approximately 1 in 10 Labour peers, 1 in 25 LibDems and 1 in 100 Tory peers in clover.

According to Oakeshott, more than 20 Labour peers are making substantial sums from quango work, 2 Tories are on the gravy train and three LibDems are living it up at the taxpayer's expense. We are talking six-figure sums here, £600 to £800 a day, with many on over £100,000 a year.

Oakeshott says "Ministers might as well put up an 'Opposition Peers need not apply' sign. This is creeping corruption, alongside the shameless sleaze of cash for Labour peerages. New Labour trumpets the need for transparency and diversity. It doesn't work that way when they hand out jobs to their own Peers."

Many of the Labour peers who have been appointed to jobs by secretaries of state are former Labour party officials or trade unionists. Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, who used to have an official role on Labour's ruling body, the NEC, now earns £45,802 as chair of an obscure quango which oversees the New Covent Garden Market Flower market. Jobs for the boys and girls...

H4L : SpAd Split Looks Permanent

Hain was recently overheard saying "Phil needs to grow up"...

Looks like the decline and fall of Phil Taylor is permanent.

Meantime Hain is scaremongering on the campaign trail that the Tories could be back in government in Wales. Now this Thursday is going to be bad for Labour, but not that bad...

Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View

Gordon Faces Personal Defeat on Home Turf

Is It Local?

In general Guido doesn't do local stories unless they have national implications because they are (a) of local interest only (b) incredibly involved (c) boring. Also they invariably involve tales of petty corruption which would require resources that Guido does not have to validate. The Sunday Times has the resources to put an undercover reporter into Labour's Leeds party operation to uncover corrupt Postal Vote practises. Guido does not and sticks to Westminster stories.

There are plenty of local focus blogs that break local stories, Greenwich Watch does what it says on the tin to great effect and the annoyance of the local council. The blog billed as the "Welsh version of Guido Fawkes" goes from strength to strength. Despite a certain similarity www.ArsemblyWales.org will not be confused with the official ww.AssemblyWales.org. Some tribute sites are better than others. This one has a few other stylistic similarities that co-conspirators might recognise

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Gordon Suffers Homophobic Abuse

A co-conspirator draws to Guido's attention a report in yesterday's London Paper. After spending an evening in a Soho restaurant Gordon Brown "emerged, clutching a mysterious brown envelope, he was harangued by a group of hoodies. 'They were all screaming abuse at him, calling him gay and a poof... They were getting aggressive. A girl said she’d had her benefits cut and was going to rob him.' ”

The chancellor was bundled into his car by security officers.

Where's Gordon?™ Day 25

Today Gordon Brown was getting heckled by the mother of a cystic fibrosis patient over the removal of free TV sets from a PFI hospital ward. Linda Smith was held back by police at the entrance to the Heartlands Hospital, in Birmingham but was later allowed to enter the building and had a five-minute talk with the chancellor.

Mrs Smith, 56, complained to the chancellor that it was not right for children on the ward for hours on end to have nothing to amuse them "Children spend their last weeks and months of their lives on that ward... They can't go out because of the risk of infection. The fact that they have pulled the plug is criminal."

Where's Gordon?™ tracks Gordon's campaign trail as he tries to shore up the Labour vote.

LibDems Support Tots for Tots

The Romsey Redhead herself, Sandra Gidley, is fighting the good fight against the scourge of tee-totalism. Guido has just received her press release commenting on Alcohol Concern's call for parents who give alcohol to under-15s to face prosecution. The LibDem Health spokesperson says "Watching adults drink responsibly can actually encourage young people to have a more mature attitude to alcohol." So Donald James Kennedy will be alright.

Guido's mother used to dip his soother in rum, never did Guido any harm...

Friday Caption Competition (Man's Best Friend Edition)

Labour's Lemming-Like Lunacy

When you look at this morning's YouGov poll in the Torygraph you have to wonder if the Labour party is having a collective moment of Lemming-like lunacy. Blair is undeniably more popular than Brown. Voters would far prefer to live under a Cameron government than a Brown government by a 10% margin.

Even if Brown signalled straight-away that he intended to bring the boys back from Iraq, (something that would be popular), he would be supported in this by the Tories, so no real advantage will come even from that. The much heralded "Brown Bounce" seems as real a prospect as a "Brown tax cut". Left-wing voters will still remember that he wrote the cheques for the war and right-wing voters will always say it was his fault that the army was ill equipped, under-funded and over-stretched. The Brown bounce will be a dead-Lemming bounce.

Full data set (pdf) here.

GuyNews : My Kinda Neo-Con Cheerleader

Guido doesn't have much time for Neo-Con cheerleaders, but put them in a short skirt...

Michelle Malkin is a blogger with a huge following in the U.S., five million hit her blog every month. Where are my pom-poms?

Watch her over on GuyNews.TV

Where's Batesy?

Has anyone seen John Reid's attack dog, Steve Bates, lately? He wasn't seen in the Westminster Arms today. Maybe he is deep in discussion with Simon Wren?

Wonder why?

Why You Should Never Photoshop an Election Leaflet

Busharat Ali is the Labour candidate in Lawrence Hill ward, Bristol. He didn’t like being attacked in a LibDem leaflet over Iraq. He responded with a leaflet claiming: “I was on the National March in London against the Iraq war” with the above photo next to those words.

Was he? It looks like somebody has done a bit of photoshopping. Inserting his head badly and deleting the "We Are All Hizbullah" banners. You decide...

Hat-tip : LibDemVoice

Ming "Focus on Principle over Fashion"

Friend of Kylie, Gordon attacked celeb culture and now Ming has a go at "principle over fashion...open-necked shirt photo ops with headlines attached". "What we need is the dominance of principle over fashion.... What we need is real, tough decision-making."

Ming has made the tough decision to have a (politically fashionable) Facebook link. Principle?

Reid "Deplores Leaks"

Guido wonders how John Reid's media advisers managed to keep a straight face issuing that statement yesterday. Perhaps the police looking into the source of the leak should start here?

Where's Gordon?™ Not at PMQs Again

Not sure where he was today.

He was missing and not even getting the blame for anything in particular in theCommons...

The interactive mapping is still tracking Where's Gordon?™

UPDATE : He was in Edinburgh.

Sith Come to Gordon's Aid in Scotland

The SNP's fight for freedom and self determination for Scotland is hitting Gordon hard on his home turf. Gordon has been arguing that the SNP would damage the economy and the party has no support from the business community.

So when the SNP listed 100 leading businessmen who were supporting them, Gordon was not amused. A counter list of 100 businessman opposed to Scottish independence was hastily assembled. An advert was placed in The Scotsman by these "non-partisan" business leaders. Guido understands that it was financed by John Milligan, who is also a trustee of the Smith Institute...

The Race for Number Two : Hain's Campaign

Yesterday's request for co-conspirators to email Guido with titbits and gossip about the wannabee Number Twos produced an effluence of information, largely for some reason about Team Hain. Fascinating stuff, most of which you won't find on Hain4Labour. On the campaign site his lengthy and detailed political biography neglects to mention that he was the president of the Young Liberals in 1977. Not a lot of policy positions either, beyond "I agree with Gordon" which he couples with the word "radical" repeatedly. However a co-conspirator has dug out the perma-tan's policy views. In his book "The Democratic Alternative" he lists what a Hain administration would do in the first 100 days. It is heady stuff:

"By the Monday, after polling, the new government should be launching the next phase: the first 100 days during which it must stamp a new approach on the nation. Exchange controls will need to be quickly imposed with new powers over foreign capital movements. All financial institutions and companies should be required to halt new investment overseas. The pension funds and other financial institutions should be required to purchase government stocks to fund a massive expansion of a rejuvenated National Enterprise Board. Immediate import controls should be imposed, pending full negotiations in the context of planned trade and planning agreements. Privatisation of British Telecom should be reversed.... price controls should also figure during these first 100 days... It is essential to involve the unions directly over decisions in all economic activities etc etc

State-controlled authoritarian socialism, unlilateral disarmanent with CND invited to takeover the Ministry of Defence, leaving NATO, government organised anti - American demonstrations, price-controls, it is all there. Hain aims to turn Britain into a rainy version of Cuba. Is this what he means by "radical"? Does Gordon know about this?

What will Ronnie Cohen do when they nationalise his private equity investments?

...to be continued.

Police Keeping Close Watch on Levy

There has been some speculation that the CPS could place charges as soon as June, which will coincide nicely with the Blair-Brown handover and the publication of the follow-up Big Red Book of New Labour Sleaze. Guido is also working on another book, with the working title "The Trial of Lord Levy", for publication, on the advice of lawyers, after the verdict.

While researching the latter book it has come to Guido's notice that, somewhat bizarrely for a man on police bail, whenever Sleazy Levy is in public he can invariably be seen being kept under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan Police. Guido understands that they are for his personal protection, not surveillance.

Guido never knew it could be so dangerous in leafy Mill Hill...

Don't Go Blair!

The nose picking, nail chewing, always mincing, hair greasing, cluster-headache suffering, pension grabbing stealth-taxer also tucks his trousers into his socks? Inevitably Labour reaches a poll low not seen since Michael Foot in 1983 and the bookies shorten the odds on the Tory favourites to win the general election.

Remind Guido why they are getting rid of three-times-winner Blair early?

GuyNews : Do You Know This Drunk Man?

Filmed covertly on the train home on St George's day. Clearly he has been celebrating the day. He looks like a certain Tory MP, he even seems to be wearing one of Rosindell's roses.

Watch it over on GuyNews.TV

Where's Gordon?™ 2

Gordon was campaigning at another child-focused photo-op again yesterday.

Where's Gordon?™ tracks Gordon's campaign trail as he tries to shore up the Labour vote in Scotland.

UPDATE : Notice something weird about this picture? Look at Gordon's feet. He has tucked his trouser leg into his sock. The man Polly Toynbee calls an "intellectual giant" has trouble dressing himself.

Well at least he isn't picking his nose in front of the kids...

The Race for Number Two

Guido was perusing the Betfair political markets and suddenly lost his enthusiasm for gambling. It seems all so boringly predictable. Sarko will be Presidente, Blair will go in the summer, Brown will be PM. Only the deputy leadership looks a bit less predictable.

It also has some characters, Hain and Blears provide a lot of comedic potential. Guido feels we should know more about these people and their campaigns - well not the campaign issues so much as the campaigners themselves - we're not interested in policy. So co-conspirators, email Guido with titbits and gossip.

Rosindell Rosey

If you were confused yesterday seeing so many Tory MPs wearing Mandelsonian red roses, blame Andrew Rosindell. He bought a gross of them from Romford's finest florist for distribution via the Opposition Whips Office. Ed Vaizey thought it made them look like ushers.

Hat-tip: Ed Vaizey

Happy St George's Day

As my own country makes steps towards unity and complete self-determination, Guido will say a prayer to St George that one day England too can achieve sovereignty and freedom from rule by foreigners.

Even your patron saint is actually a Turk and sadly you don't get a national holiday today. With both a German-descended head-of-state and a Scots dominated government, it must all be a little demoralising. Without even your own sporting English national anthem, the Irish Rugby team easily kicked English ass, and even the English cricket team looks susceptible to the rise of the Irish cricket team.* Things could, with the prospect of Prime Minister Brown, be depressing for the English.

Nevertheless, this Irishman would like to wish all his English readers a happy St George's day.

*We beat Pakistan.

Where's Gordon?™

Guido is saddened to learn that Friday's untreated massive sewage discharge by Scottish Water into the Firth of the Forth, flowed past Gordon's North Queensferry/Fife home this warm weekend.

Don't forget the updated interactive Where's Gordon?™ keeps track Gordon's campaign moves.

Hilary Benn is a "Limey SheMale"

In New York Hilary's "we-don't-call-it-the- war-on-terror" speech got noticed.

See it on Guynews.

Odds Harden

Mike Smithson points out this morning that as political punters increasingly see Gordon as nigh-on a certainty, the odds on the Tories winning the general election become even firmer.

The correlation is striking.

Blairite Takes Flight

Julia Simpson, one of Tony's strategic communications spin mistresses is going to spin for British Airways from August. She certainly has the right qualifications for handling troubled brand images.

Guido thinks we'll be seeing a rush for the exit from Downing Street over the next few months...

Hain SpAd's Unpaid Leave Becomes Unemployment

Peter Hain's former Special Adviser, Phil Taylor, who resigned or took unpaid leave from Hain's office (the story changes) to 'run' the perma-tanned boy-racer's deputy leadership campaign has quit the campaign.

Taylor and Hain parted company last week due 'irreconcilable differences'. Hain didn't agree with Taylor's advice which contradicted the advice of the individual actually employed to run the campaign, Steve Morgan. Taylor had a tantrum, threatened to leave, Hain suggested he do so forthwith. Hain showed little loyalty or gratitude - given that presumably Phil Taylor sacrificed any pay-off as a SpAd when he volunteered to work on Hain's campaign for free?

Taylor is currently looking for work, although without any success.

Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View(Chain-gang Edition)

Operation Ribble Closes :When Will Levy Be Charged?

The CPS got the final tranche of the Operation Ribble files on Friday.* The Met let the press know in no uncertain terms that they expected charges against the Sleaze Master General himself, Ruth Turner and Sir Chris Evans. If Powell faces charges too, it will be a devastating denouement to the Blair era. Blair himself is widely expected to escape without being charged, the documentary evidence being too weak.

The CPS could make a decision as soon as June, at a time when many expect the Blair-Brown handover to be in process. Guido has long believed that the police would not be fazed by dealing with powerful political figures, that Levy would inevitably face charges and is now convinced that senior figures at the CPS will not find it possible to sweep things under the carpet. Lord Goldsmith may not even be in office when the decision to prosecute is made, it could well be a Brown appointee. If Brown's Attorney General were to block charges the prospect of a private prosecution being brought remains. Soundings have already been taken by interested parties at the Inner Temple about this possibility.

If the Attorney General were to then enter a plea of nolle prosequi, claiming it would not be in the public interest to put Blair's lieutenants on trial, Brown's administration would forever be tainted with covering up his predecessor's corruption. Something Brown is unlikely to countenance.

One way or another, this is going to go all the way.

*Guido was at the time supping champagne at Pascal Aussignac's Club Gascon.

Friday Caption Contest (Idle Hands Edition)

This was sent in by an Idle co-conspirator. Guido is off to a lunch of the finest Michelin-starred French food and wine in London with Katy Taylor-Richards and the mystery Red Nose Day bidder. You can safely presume that the blog won't be updated this afternoon...

Norman Baker Filibusters Cover-Up Bill

Good luck to LibDem MP Norman Baker, who has vowed to use fillibustering tactics to ensure that the bill to exempt MPs from Freedom of Information requests runs out of time before passing.

Baker has a cross-party alliance with Tory Richard Shepherd, and Labour’s Mark Fisher and Plaid Cymru’s Hywel Williams — who have tabled a long list of amendments to the bill.

David Maclean, a Tory MP, introduced this cover-up bill. He'll be lucky to assemble 100 MPs on a Friday afternoon to stop it being talked out. Guido knows he is a former whip, but he was never that good.

MPs would no doubt want to cover up these types of things.

If Not Miliband, Who Will Challenge Brown?

Miliband has apparently told everyone he really means it and he won't stand. So we are left with the joke candidacies of John McDonnell and Michael Meacher - who are unlikely to even manage to get 44 MPs to back their nomination.

Reid is wounded but circumstances can change, 40/1 currently on Betfair seems a bit too long a price. Particularly as he still very firmly refuses to rule himself out of the running.

Milburn (100/1) would be humiliated and knows it.

Charle Clarke (50/1) is bitter enough to give it a stab "to encourage a debate", citing principle rather than ambition.

John Hutton (150/1) is another one - he is certain to be sacked by Brown, since he famously told Nick Robinson that "Brown would be a fucking disastrous PM". As a result he is not going to feature in a future Brown cabinet. He is surely worth a few quid as a trading bet on Betfair? Guido has a few quid on him running as an outside bet. He is the only Blairite in the cabinet with the inclination to chance it.

Punters Spooked by Mole

The First Post's "The Mole" has tipped Mike Smithson at PoliticalBetting.com that he is about to break a story. The Mole is firmly in the Brown camp. Punters have shifted money onto an early bath for Blair with speculation of a date being leaked. We have had this before with The Sun even announcing a date on the front page.

Nick Robinson has been weighing up Blair's semantic choices. His PMQs answer to Cameron this week implied that he had not made up his mind when to go. Did he just say that to wind up the Brownites?

Most think he'll make an announcement after May 3. Presumably he'll wait until after returning from Stormont on May 8 to bask in the afterglow of perhaps achieving peace in the six counties. (We should not quibble that it is a strange peace that sees the two most extreme parties in power.) So it is possible that he could go see the Queen and tell her of his intentions sometime in early May.

For political punters whether or not it is before or after May 13 is crucial. The leadership process takes 7 weeks. Bets on the timing of his leaving hinge on the date he is no longer leader of the Labour party. If the process starts on May 12 bets will be settled for June, if May 13 bets will be settled for July. Knife edge...

UPDATE : The Mole's big "exclusive" this morning is the claim that Blair will say he is going on May 9. Could be... but never say never with Blair and our Brownite Mole might be indulging in wishful thinking.

Smithson Decides Not to Risk It

Mike Smithson from PoliticalBetting.com has a book out The Political Punter, How to make money betting on politics. Guido was chatting to Mike at the book launch when in came Mark Oaten. He strolled over to Mike (interrupting our conversation) and congratulated him on the book.

Mike thanked him and being ever polite turned to introduce Oaten, hesitated for a second and quickly said "there is someone you must speak to", smoothly diverting Oaten away from Guido. Just as well really...

40 Tory Mayoral Hopefuls

Guido understands that some 40 wannabees have put their name forward to CCHQ in their quest to become Mayor of London. Still time for you to put your name forward...