Labour Activists : "We Want Miliband"

LabourHome has started doing a tracker poll, if it is good enough for ConservativeHome and PoliticsHome it is good enough for them.

Good news and bad news for Gordon, the good news is he is rated higher than his Chancellor. The bad news is he scored the second lowest out of the cabinet...

Most Labour activists rate Miliband highest, followed by Alan Johnson. Would Guido be completely crazy to suspect that this isn't really a 1 to 10 performance rating, but a proxy for "Who would you rather lead the Labour Party?" Of course it is...

Brown Loses Compass, Neal Lawson Calls for Him to Go

Neal Lawson runs Compass which is the liveliest of Labour's soft-left factional campaigning organisations. He is a prickly character, some will attribute his knifing of Gordon today (Indy) to a mixture of disappointment and perhaps irritation that post-Blair he has neither been listened to, nor given any preferment by Gordon. He might not have taken up a position in Gordon's big tent, but it would have been nice to have been asked...

Compass was a strategic part of the "coalition of the willing" to unseat Blair, so Lawson should accept some of the responsibility for saddling Labour with Brown. The month after Brown took office Lawson wrote a piece for the Guardian gushing like a school girl:

The skilfully engineered bounce witnessed in the first days of Gordon Brown's premiership could be turned into something more: a political earthquake. The time is ripe not just for a better Labour government but for a shift in the centre of gravity of politics decisively to the left. Brown could be the first Labour leader since Clement Attlee to recast British society - not by taking small steps but giant leaps. This is why. Once in every generation a political revolution takes place in which thinking and behaviour shifts not just by degrees but qualitatively. It happened in 1945 under Labour, as the experience of the war and the economic depression before it heralded the centralised welfare state.

He concluded his paean with a quote from the left-wing theorist Gramsci: "The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions, without becoming disillusioned." Well today he has himself failed Gramsci's challenge, his disillusionment is total. He complains that since Gordon funked calling an election in October he has been an "unmitigated disaster". Gordon's "responses have been both wrong and weak" or merely "dog whistle policies". How hard it must be for Lawson and his Compass followers, who connived with the Brownies so long to make life difficult for Blair, to see left-wing hopes crushed as Labour now campaigns on an authoritarian agenda, promising "British jobs for British workers", attacking the Tories for being soft on foreigners and ID cards so soon after publicly taking tea with Mrs Thatcher. Gordon is now reviled both by the vindicated Blairites and the disillusioned left. The worry for the Tories must be that the factions might just unite to dispatch Brown early...

Miliband is the New Heseltine

Last night Miliband was on Newsnight, unlike Gordon he does have the courage to face Paxo, and was arguing that "Green is the new red". All very worthy and dull eco-technocratic-tosh. More interesting were his protestations about not wanting Gordon's job. That is something that Alan Johnson emphasises as well. Clearly if you want to survive and not be mauled by the Brownies briefing behind your back, you have to say repeatedly "Gordon is the best man for the job". Despite the fact that, as Martin Bright writes in this week's New Statesman, the Labour Party is no longer in denial post the May Day Massacre.

Miliband's word formula is that he is getting on with being foreign secretary, it is becoming almost as familiar as Heseltine's old word formula: Heseltine used to say that there were "no circumstances imaginable currently in which he would..."

Last night it was nuanced very deliberately in Guido's opinion:

Paxo : How much longer can you resist these calls for you to take on the burden of leadership?

Milibland : For as long as it takes until Gordon Brown calls the next general election. Gordon was the right leader last year and he is the right leader this year, and to take us into the general election

Clearly Gordon is the captain and he can go down with the sinking ship, then it is everyone for himself...

Miliband's word formulations have to allow for the non-cerebal Brownies' psychotic tendencies. Hence he pledges completely over the top total fidelity and loyalty - with a time limit - until the day after the general election. The truth is Gordon has the job until election day because no one else now wants it. That is also why Alan Johnson doesn't want the job of spinning on broadcast media, the job Hazel Blears undertook in the past for Blair. He clearly does not want to be associated in the public eye with the Brown disaster.Guido still stands by his 2005 prophecy: Cameron will be PM and Miliband will immediately challenge for the leadership...

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Interested parties should contact Mr G. Brown, Listening Leader of the Labour Party, C/O Downing Street, London SW1.

Is Jack Straw Four Votes from Becoming PM?

Sky's Jon Craig, who didn't join the Lobby to stand around in bars speculating idly, is playing What If...

1. Gordon loses Monday's vote to double the 10p tax rate on low earners on Frank Field's rebel amendment?
2. What if Ken Livingstone loses to Boris Johnson in London on May 1?
3. What if Labour rebels throw out 42-day detention for terrorists next month?

The first would be a personal defeat for Brown, he introduced the 10p rate, he is abolishing it. If Londoners voted for Boris it would put real fear into Southern Labour MPs. If the third vote is lost, and most Labour Party MPs and activists don't have their heart in needless 42-day detention, it will surely be curtains for Gordon.

Who would the PLP then want to lead them in times of trouble? Not one of the young pretenders. Jack Straw would be their Michael Howard figure. Safely captaining the sinking ship, hopefully without the loss of too many lives / seats. The PLP would vote for Jack ahead of Cruddas...

What Has David Pitt-Watson Got to Lose?

Something is troubling Guido's suspicious mind about the new explanation for David Pitt-Watson not taking up the post of General Secretary of the Labour Party.

According to the Brownies, as communicated via the usually reliable medium on these matters, Ben Brogan's blog;

The new general secretary is said to be worried about the state of the party's finances and the rules that say his personal assets could be forfeit if the party goes into liquidation. Mr Brown counters that it would never happen so the problem doesn't arise, but has reluctantly given Mr P-W time to sort his personal finances in order and put his wealth (described to me as "low millions") beyond reach.

Now the only way this could be done is for him to divest himself of his assets into some kind of unbreakable trust of which he was not a beneficiary. Would Gordon countenance the future General Secretary of a party mired in financial scandals involving proxy donors and illegal donations doing something that would be perceived by some as questionable? And to take all the time he likes about it? Which direction is that on the moral compass?

How many millions has the new General Secretary of the Labour Party got to put beyond reach? Well his NW5 home is probably worth a little short of £2 million. He worked for a few years at Hermes on the asset management side where he remains a director of two of their funds as well as Oxford Analytica and our old friends the IPPR. So low millions seems about right.

He was in 1997 a director of two Labour Party controlled limited liability companies, Labour Party Properties Limited and Labour Nominees Limited. Perhaps he would rather the Labour Party itself was a limited liability entity? Maybe. Certainly some are speculating along those lines. Hard to see how the party could be re-configured on that basis without the unanimous agreement of all the creditors and a vote at the party conference. There is no way that the Co-op Bank could, bearing in mind its fiduciary duties, accept such a change.

Something isn't quite right here. Remember that originally Downing Street spin, by which we mean lies, that DPW was tied up by contractual commitments? This new line still doesn't make any sense. Guido has a hunch that the truth is as originally reported. To Gordon's tantrum-ridden horror, DPW simply doesn't really want the job...

Gordon Begs and Rages at Gen-Sec Elect "Don't Walk Away"

Guido has previously speculated about whether or not the Labour Party was actually legally solvent. It is noticeable that loan after loan has fallen due and not been repaid. The money has been rolled over, reportedly with some reluctance by some lenders. The party is up to its neck in debt to the Co-Op Bank and and the unions via money laundered through Unity Trust Bank. The latter bank has lent so much money to the Labour Party against a small capital base that the FSA put it on the high risk loan register and demanded monthly report monitoring of the risk.

David Pitt-Watson, as a calculating City risk taker, would have been well aware of the risk. The Labour Party is now classed by credit agencies as a dangerously high credit risk. As an unincorporated association the bulk of assets and debts are in law owned by trustees for the Labour Party, which is £20 million in debt and the members of the NEC are personally liable. If an aggrieved creditor were to call in the debts, it would be them who would be on the hook. David Pitt-Watson is worth millions, which a canny creditor might think worth pursuing. Ben Brogan has been briefed by Downing Street that, as speculated first on LabourHome and followed up by the Guardian, this is the reason Pitt-Watson has had second thoughts about the job. Brogan says that it will take until the autumn for "DPW" to "sort his affairs".

Well it is certainly more plausible than the original spin from Downing Street that the delay was due to "contractual reasons" related to his previous appointment. To be honest, Guido never believed that line and this seems a bit too convenient as well.

Taking the explanation at face value is hard to do. Setting up a discretionary trust to protect your assets from creditors takes weeks not months, it also has the benefit of putting your assets out of the Chancellor's reach. Wonder how the Labour Party rank-and-file will feel about a multi-millionaire general secretary of the party who has such little faith in his own skills and the party's ability to raise funds that he hides his own money from creditors whilst putting his assets beyond the reach of the tax man? Not exactly "for the many, not the few" is it?

Incidentally, is this story LabourHome's first proper scoop? Does it redeem Alex Hilton's reputation?

Chairman of PLP Dismayed With Government

When Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the PLP, warns that the Government needs to "clarify what it's there for" you know they are in trouble. Did anyone ever ask Blair to clarify what he was there for?

Everyone knew what Thatcher was for. Would she have tolerated Chinese goons stomping around Downing Street while she looked meekly on? In 1980 she sent in the SAS to deal with Iranian goons when they started pushing hostages about.

After Boris becomes London mayor the Labour Party will realise that it is facing defeat. The battle for the post-Brown leadership of the Labour Party begins May 2.

Gordon's Choice As General-Secretary Doesn't Want the Job

David Pitt-Watson was Gordon Brown's favoured candidate to replace the disgraced Peter Watt, who quit in the row over Labour's donations by proxy and is under investigation by the police. Gordon sat in at the NEC meeting to personally push through the City fund manager's appointment. LabourHome reported this morning that he "has changed his mind about wanting the job before he has even started".

Downing Street's spin machine went into over-drive to conceal what will look like a bad error of judgement by Gordon. The official line is, implausibly, that David Pitt-Watson has contractual duties which preclude him starting before the Labour Party's annual conference in September. Guido has confirmed that this is far from true.

No. 10 has been desperately searching for a face-saving way out of the embarrassing situation for the last week. The person selected and championed by Gordon in the face of opposition by traditionalists has decided he doesn't want the job. The Brownies plan is to maintain the pretence that David Pitt-Watson is to be Labour's new General Secretary until after the party conference. At which time an excuse will be found and the acting General Secretary, Chris Lennie, will slip into the post. As preparations for civil war post Mayor Boris advance they couldn't even keep that from leaking to bloggers....

87% of Tories Behind CameronHow Many Labour MPs Behind Brown?

It seems pretty clear that Brown's attempt to placate Labour MPs by attending the meeting of the PLP on Monday was not successful. Labour MPs actually criticised him to his face about putting up taxes on low income earners. When Brown went into his tractor-production-is-up mode around the room "there was a collective murmur of disagreement. It was like a collective heckle"- according to an unnamed MP quoted by the Guardian's Nicholas Watt.

On the opposition benches the grassroots polling carried out by ConservativeHome is reporting high levels of satisfaction with Dave. Labour's Charles Clarke MP helpfully produced a doomsday list of southern seats that will see Labour MPs out come the general election. Those marginal MPs will be the ones who start agitating for a change of direction and perhaps a change of leader. Ivan Lewis, a government minister, laid into Brown on the weekend. He said the government is out of touch with ordinary Labour voters. Even the Mirror's Kevin Maguire agrees - "Labour must prove it's in touch with voters".

Brown will be fighting on two fronts, his own benches restless and fearful, the opposition benches hungry and united. How long will the Blairites restrain themselves? Guido suspects that the psychological impact of Mayor Boris will be huge. It will signal that a Brown led Labour Party is facing certain electoral defeat.

The civil war will begin on May 2...

Brown's Loyalists "Part of the Problem", Not the Solution

They are calling it Downing Street blue-on-blue infighting. The neo-Brownies from the PR world ousting the old Brownie tribe who successfully undermined Blair. The truth is the Brownies are second rate compared to the Blairites, this was patently obvious to any objective observer. Even Guido, no fan of Blair, could see that he was a politician with a high calibre team. Brown on the other hand is a brooding malevolent weirdo who had no choice but to surround himself with second raters, Blair had attracted the best and the brightest of New Labour's talent pool.

The Brownies were able to undermine a triple election winning prime minister, brief against rivals, selectively leak, obstruct, frustrate rival policy objectives out of spite and generally behave like petulant secretive plotters always positioning for factional advantage rather than in the national interest. They were capable of that, alas when they finally assumed control of No. 10 it became clear within months that they were not a capable or competent premiership team.
If Gordon is to have any hope of narrowing the double digit lead Cameron has over him at the polls he clearly needs to up his game. Stephen Carter has been brought in from his job as CEO of Brunswick to do that because the veteran Brownies are part of the problem, not the solution, too immersed in the Labour tribe, good at arm twisting the party rank and file, not at reaching out to swing voters. His PPS Ian Austin's heckles of Cameron at PMQs amuse only the class warriors on the Labour back benches - they even manage to irritate the chippy Speaker. His counsel is no use to Gordon now the electorate that matters to him is no longer merely the PLP.

Month after month of poll decline has finally got the message through to Brown. Hence we see the marginalising of his former closest supporters, even his pollster, Deborah Mattinson is said to be on her way out. Spencer Livermore went in tears. Gordon's praetorian guard MPs Tom Watson and Iain Austin, respectively Gordon's attack puppy and heckler-in-chief, occupied ground floor offices in Downing Street adjacent to the cabinet room. The pair liked to think of themselves as Gordon's enforcers. Stephen Carter has had them kicked out of their offices and their places taken by his deputy and secretary.

The Labour Party is in the Dock

The list of Labour Party figures who look likely to find themselves in the courts this year is getting longer; David Abrahams (or whatever he is calling himself today), Peter Watt, Peter Hain, Wendy Alexander and Harriet Harman, plus a potential supporting cast of intermediaries, advisers and party apparatchiks as defendants.

Some 28,800 people were prosecuted last year by Hain's former department, the DWP, for failing to declare income. Many were prosecuted for small amounts of money. Poor people.

They were unable to use the defence that they were too busy, that it was an innocent mistake, or that they forgot. Peter Watt conspired to break the law, David Abrahams concocted a scheme to circumvent the law, Wendy Alexander broke the law as did Harriet Harman. If they are not prosecuted it will mean that we are not all equal before the law, the rich and powerful can treat it with contempt. Should it be acceptable that a single mother on benefits who does a bit of hairdressing for cash gets prosecuted, whereas a former Minister of the Crown gets the benefit of the doubt? No ifs, no buts, lawmakers can't be allowed to be law breakers.

Exclusive : Wendy Alexander Thank You Note Proves She Knew

click to enlarge

This letter should mean Wendy Alexander is toast. This personal note (dated October 5) to Paul Green shows that her telling the media that the first time she knew about the personal donation from Paul Green was 1 pm yesterday, is completely untrue.

Paul Green has also admitted that he gave two personal cheques of £950 which would have put him over the £1000 barrier and shown he was an impermissible donor.

Tom McCabe, her campaign manager, also said on Newsnight Scotland last night that David Whitton MSP was the treasurer for Wendy's campaign. Yet it was David Whitton who put this statement out on Wednesday night:

"Paul Green was invited by one on the Campaign Team to make a donation as a longstanding Labour supporter. As required by the rules we made inquiries about permissibility and indicated to him that only a UK resident or UK registered company could donate. The registered donation was a UK corporate one. The allegation that a donation was accepted and returned is untrue. We acted in good faith at every stage. The Electoral Commission has been kept appraised."

The Treasurer would have surely seen the personal cheques and Wendy could not have signed this without noticing the address was Jersey...

N.B. There is no wriggle room. She is on the hook completely;

4.3 It is the legal responsibility of a regulated donee, when receiving a donation to take all reasonable steps forthwith to satisfy themselves that the source of a donation is permissible within the relevant PPERA rules.

Harriet Harman Should Resign

• Hilary Benn turned down £5000 for his deputy leadership campaign after Margaret Jay told him the cash from Janet Kidd was on behalf of David Abrahams. He insisted the cash should come from Mr Abrahams himself.
• Gordon Brown also turned down £5000 for his campaign, so presumably his campaign team knew it was dodgy.
• Peter Watt admits he knew about the money laundering scheme on behalf of Abrahams.

Despite her husband being the Labour party's treasurer everyone seems to have known except for Harriet, she says she took the cash in good faith, that she thought it was a bona fide donation, that she did not know. In which case she will now of course repay the £5,000...

When the disgraced Blunkett was caught fiddling his expenses for his mistress he paid back the money - as if that made it alright. Whenever politicians are caught breaking the law they seem to think they can buy their way out of trouble with the same money they have cheated. That is not enough.

Harman is now chairman of the Labour party, her deputy leadership election was governed by electoral law. She received illegal funding for her campaign. It is that simple. If she had any honour she would resign this afternoon.

Benn Got £5,000 from Abrahams As Well

You have to give credit to Abrahams, he backed Harriet Harman for Deputy Leader with £5,000 through Janet Kidd, whilst giving another £5,000 to her rival contender Hilary Benn in his own name. Backing two horses in a race? Hardly shows a personal commitment, it is as if he is just throwing money at anyone in a potential position of influence. Why would he value their influence?

Harman Was Backed by the Sith

Guido has only just found out that Harman was advised by Deborah Mattinson, the high-priestess of the Sith, Gordon's personal pollster, Smith Institute board member and recipient of many juicy government contracts though her firm OLR.

It was her, Guido believes, that commissioned the YouGov poll showing that Harman had much needed appeal in the South East. That poll result featured heavily in Harman's propaganda...

GuyNews : "Oh, F**K" - Who's That Girl?

No doubt Harriet Harman will be savouring the moment the announcement was made by watching the video of it over and over again.

Watch the reaction of the girl immediately behind her - you can clearly make out the verbal exclamation as she buries her head in her hands.

It doesn't take the skills of a lip-reader. Watch the clip on GuyNews.

[Many thanks to a T-shirt winning co-conspirator in the gallery.]

Alan Johnson Will Win By Over 5%

Guido is calling it for Johnson and and has backed him accordingly. He will, after the eliminations, win by a margin in excess of 5% according to number crunching from rival campaigns.

Looking over at LabourHome it is noticeable that the only online campaign adverts came from Alan Johnson - the tedious 8 part Benn video interview saga probably lost them votes.

Whereas the Tory leadership campaign "made" ConservativeHome, LabourHome didn't really capitalise on the campaign.

Still a chance to get a 50% return on your money in four days if you are quick on Betfair...

Not So "Nice Guy" on the Sly

A co-conspirator emails after watching Question Time last night to point out there was a priceless moment towards the end when Hilary Benn "paid tribute to Alan Johnson for the skill he showed in taking top up fees through parliament". The look that Johnson gave him was pure evil, as if to say, "thanks, pal, you'll get yours". Fantastically devious to remind Labour party activists who stuck them with the highly unpopular policy. Benn managed to make it sound like a compliment.

Punters moved firmly to Johnson to be the winner overnight on Betfair, some money shifted to Harman. Hain and Blears are no hopers at 70/1 and 100/1 respectively. Rumours are circluating that they are begging for votes to avoid humiliation. Blear's people are warning it will be a slap in the face for Blairites if she comes last. Hain's people are promising exactly the same thing as well...

UPDATE: Bit of a stewards inquiry in the comments. But after checking, Benn says it and gets the death stare from Alan Johnson 43:38 in, Cruddas brings it up right at the end, imitating Benn, a quarter of an hour later.

Voters Dislike All Six Deputy CandidatesDislike Blears the Most

Click graphic to enlarge.

Mike Smithson over at PoliticalBetting.Com pulls out some recognisability data from the latest Populus poll. Less than 1 in 5 people can identify the most recognisable candidate, Harriet Harman. 1 in 10 people can identify Hazel Blears and she is most disliked - to be even less liked than Peter Hain must be depressing.

Johnson and Benn are the least disliked and the political punter's favourites on Betfair. None of the number two wannabees has a positive rating.