William Hague, it seems, has launched a campaign against people trafficking. Apparently too many end up working in, ahem, human resources for as little as £15 a time.

On Saturday The Telegraph followed up on Guido’s story from earlier this month about the Smith Institute and today it has a leader and an article on the subject. The Charity Commissioners received calls from the Times, Bloomberg and The Telegraph chasing the story, which seems to have galvanised them into action. They have announced that they intend to re-investigate what is effectively Gordon’s slush fund and charitable successor to his “blind trust”, the Industrial Research Trust.

All are chasing what could be a dynamite scandal for Ed Balls and Gordon Brown, the Smith Institute’s use of Treasury tax rebates on donations to the “charity” to fund Ed Balls’ salary and subsidise what is the secretariat for Gordon’s government-in-waiting. The prospect of being able to lay abuse-of-office charges at the door of No. 11 has hacks salivating.

Now call Guido cynical if you will, but on the day the Charity Commissioners announce their intentions, and the Telegraph articles show the press chase has begun, we learn from a deftly placed story in the government’s favourite mouthpiece, The Sun, that tragically Gordon’s son has cystic fibrosis. A good day to front-page the tragic news?

DEVELOPING – MORE TO FOLLOW

Previous here, here and here.

Martin Bright has been all over the Loans for Lordships story. In this week’s New Statesman he recounts a recent conversation he had with the Sleaze-Master General himself.

The exchange took place at this year’s Labour Party conference during a reception hosted by the GuardianObserver, where Levy took it upon himself to act as an unofficial “meeter and greeter”.

Levy and I started talking, particularly about a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on the “cash for honours” affair which I had presented and had been broadcast that same night.

Levy was his legendary charming self. Disarmingly, he told me that his wife had watched the programme and found it very fair. I was delighted, but said there was one matter I felt I had to raise with him. What did he make of the general point I made in the programme: that the loans from wealthy party supporters were not intended as loans, but were to be converted into donations?

He gripped my arm like a long-lost friend and said, by way of answer: “Only some of them.” I asked him what he meant and whether he could point to any specific loans. He volunteered the name of Lord Sainsbury, the billionaire former science minister who had lent the party £2m.

The point is that large donations, under this government’s own legislation, had to be declared, but loans did not. So what exactly was Levy saying to me? Did he misunderstand my original question? That is possible, but he had gone on to give me an example. Was he joking? Again possibly, but it’s an odd matter to joke about. Or was he merely expressing his hope that the loans would be converted into donations?

Guido thinks that this is an admission of some guilt. If Sainsbury’s loan wasn’t really a loan and the intention was always to turn into a donation at some point, that is an offence. A false loan which disguises a donation is surely an evasion of the legally required reporting of donations under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000?

UPDATE : According to an impeccable source who has just emailed me, the Yard’s attention has been drawn to the Martin Bright story in this week’s New Statesman.

Staff and passengers now permitted to wear crosses, crucifixes, St Christophers, lucky amulets, voodoo dolls to ward off the Evil Eye etc etc.

Peter Griffiths, head of the Home Office Information Services Unit told the Online Information Conference in London yesterday -

“Blogs are increasingly used as a political tool. Political blogging has risen rapidly in the last 18 months and will no doubt be important in next year’s French elections. The most visited political blog Guido Fawkes is as popular as Private Eye magazine. Fawkes publishes his server logs on his site to show that politicians go there and use the site.

“There are stories that appear in the media that we tracked using traditional press cuttings services, but blogging is not tracked by cuttings agencies. Monitoring news is important as so much affects us as a government.

“We see a number of newspapers are crediting the blogs that gave them the lead. The Home Office used its library current awareness service to track blogs.

“In July 2005 they had a meeting with the press office to set up a montoring service on a trial period of six months.

“As news of what we were doing for the press office spread we were asked by lawyers, IT and all areas of Home Office made requests. Issues like ID cards produce a peak in blogs. In November of this year we already on 1888 alerts. We have 12 librarians that monitor blogs on a daily seven day week basis. These come in as feeds, the tools make the job easier, they cannot replace the skills of the professionals. Fundamental information professional skills of knowing your audience really comes to light. In just over a year it has become a key part of our department service, the benefits include a public enquiries unit that we can alert to media campaigns that are Home Office issues. There is now an enquiry department that is ahead of the news. As a result the department has a better relationship with its users.”

12 blog monitoring librarians working seven days a week? You Mongs! What a waste of the taxpayers money. Ever wondered how Guido found out about this story within hours of you mentioning it? Guido uses Google Alerts, Blogpulse and Technorati to track every mention of him on the web. Total cost £0.00.

So you Home Office information professionals monitoring this blog, know this, you are a total waste of money. Online services can do the job for free 24/7. You are wasting your time monging about on blogs. The government cares more about the public attacks it receives from bloggers than the attacks on the public from muggers. You should all be sacked and the money diverted to finding all the foreign criminals the Home Office released without trace so that they could steal Tim Montgomerie’s bike.

Even from across the Atlantic this blog reaches out to give the finger back to politicians…

Bates’ claim that he was instructing a fellow politician on how to vote is of course blatantly untrue. But that is what our politicians do, with complete and utter contempt for the voters and the truth. Why didn’t he just say he was fooling around and he is sorry?

Mick Bates AM (Lib Dem), and David Davies MP/AM (Conservative) interesting hand-gestures towards the Presiding Officer in the Welsh Assembly chamber.