According to an impeccable source the Scotland Yard investigation into Labour’s Loans for Lordships will not finish next month as Yates intimated to the Public Affairs Select Committee in July. It is set to drag on until the end of the year. The source emphasised that whether Blair is still in office or not is irrelevant, this is a criminal investigation.

The delay will not make the issue vanish for the Labour party, since on the eve of their conference Channel 4′s Dispatches will be broadcasting a documentary special on Levy’s shenanigans.

Those of you playing Sleazy Sweepstakes in Downing Street can sweat a bit longer. The rest of you playing should try to figure out who the chap is in the middle to the right of the already arrested Sleazy Levy and Des Smith. If you have drawn him you could be lucky next….

Email Guido for a PDF file to print out, then cut out and play Sleazy Sweepstakes in your office (Peerages not included.)

UPDATE : Guido stands by his story, despite the leaked Mark Townsend and Antony Barnett story in the Observer this morning. Guido’s source is adamant that the investigation will not be over by mid-October. This “leak” in itself has an air of wishful thinking about it bordering on spin. Reading between the lines of their story it looks like somebody either in the CPS or the Attorney-General’s office is their “leak” source. If it is either legal source somebody is improperly spinning the investigation for political purposes – the law is supposed to be above politics. When we are governed by sleazy law-breaking law-makers it is essential that the criminal justice system is not politicised.

UPDATE II : Oh look, Mark Townsend has also written a puff piece for the Attorney-General today, what a coincidence. No point really asking the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, to initiate a root and branch leak investigation is there?

Sources “close to” Lord Goldsmith wouldn’t be trying to pre-empt the investigating officers’ final report?