Guido has just got off the phone with the Electoral Commission and they were being reasonably tight-lipped about their investigation. They would only say that it started yesterday and it was being handled by their compliance department.

They would not be drawn to comment on how it might run in the very likely event that the police begin a criminal investigation.

Nobody is taking the investigation into Harriet Harman that is reporting to Harriet Harman very seriously. Possibly because it is being carried out by Labour’s former general secretary, Lord Whitty, under the advice of the former bishop of Oxford and veteran Thought for the Day platitude peddler Lord Harries, and the former Labour Scottish Solicitor General, Lord McCluskey.

Everyone keeps repeating the same joke about “all we need now is an actress”. But we already have Ms Harman…

UPDATE : Peter Oborne in tomorrow’s Speccie :

‘Get me a Bishop. Get me a f—ing Bishop!’ Peter Mandelson, then Labour’s political strategist, yelled these words across the floor of Labour campaign headquarters at a rare moment of crisis before the 1997 general election. Inquiries were made, soundings taken in ecclesiastical and other circles. With surprising speed, lo and behold! there emerged out of pontifical obscurity the austere figure of Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford. The ecclesiastical potentate obligingly anathemised John Major and his works.