Guido has learnt that following the condemnation by the Charity Commission of the trustees of the Smith Institute, Lord Haskel has resigned as chairman of the trustees, Wilf Stevenson has also resigned as director after the unprecedented criticism of the charity for partisanship.

Paul Hackett, a wonk who has written some pamphlets for the Sith, is the “acting director”. The offices are closed and Guido has confirmed that the Smith Institute will no longer be based at the New Statesman’s offices. The rumour in wonk-land has it that the IPPR has taken pity on them and will be giving them space at their offices.

Yesterday a number of co-conspirators emailed to draw attention to the Labourgraph story about Milburn being offered the Chancellor-ship by Miliband. Guido ignored the story because he thought it was transparently crap.

The rebuttals are now in and they are clear “absolute bollocks” from Milburn and “work of fiction” from Milband. If this is the Brownies being clever it is idiotic, it was written by journalists known to be sympathetic to Gordon. Rosa should really go back to the Mirror, she is trying single-handedly to stand up her story today with not a single on the record quote. Laughable. Sooner or later the Barclay brothers will realise their newspaper’s brand and culture is being destroyed – along with the profitability.

UPDATE : Rosa is denying all the suspicions on the Labourgraph blog.

Gove wants to take away our Nuts, IDS and Ed Vaizey think dads shouldn’t be allowed to take their 14 year-old sons to see the latest Batman movie. It is particularly galling that Gove and Vaizey have previously projected themselves as on the libertarian side of the libertarian / authoritarian divide. Libertarian paternalism, government “nudging”, is increasingly beginning to seem like a modernised version of old fashioned authoritarian conservativism. Vaizey explicitly encourages local councils to exercise their statutory powers to prevent teenage boys seeing Batman. That is not a nudge, that is a kick in the teeth for parental responsibility, it is not the business of the state to determine for parents what is their cultural norm.

David Davis is no longer in the shadow cabinet, apart from him it is a long time since Guido has heard a senior Conservative figure mention the word “freedom”. Quality of life issues are the order of the day – well Guido has news – freedom is the most cherished quality of life for many of us. Libertarians care about family values, families are the fundamental unit of society, the welfare state has done more damage to families than anything else. Guido doesn’t need lecturing from dysfunctional politicians on family values. Julie Burchill is on to something in her new book, she reckons the posh have embraced Green values as cover to talk down to working class people. Most Greens are she (and her co-author, Chas Newkey-Burden) says, pious, sexless, contemptuous of humankind, posh and rich, having found in environmentalism a new excuse for lecturing the poor. Telling other people to live by rules they don’t apply to themselves.

Vaizey isn’t advocating a nudge, he is advocating a state prohibition. If the Conservatives don’t respect the family and no longer defend freedom they will encourage the more socially liberal to vote LibDem – particularly if the Liberal Democrats really become a low tax party.

The last speech Guido can find where a Cameroon mentions freedom was in November 2007. It was a good one:

Consider this reminder a little nudge Dave…

UPDATE : ConservativeHome has a round-up of disquiet on the right about “nudging” – essentially some are worried that it harks back to “the man in Whitehall knows best”. It is not nudging if the state starts prohibiting or prescribing. Daddy Dizzy decides not Big Brother Vaizey. Libertarians are fathers too…