1. Iain Martin took Guido to task for making speculative conjectures yesterday, today he speculates that John Reid could be the next Labour Party leader. Iain cites as “evidence” that Siobhain McDonagh was formerly Reid’s PPS. Conclusive? Just what the Labour Party needs as leader, another old Scot.

2. Jack Straw has been in Vietnam over the weekend, apparently sorting out some stuff to do with “judicial cooperation“. A source tells Guido that this is a completely non-essential visit that could easily have been sorted out through the embassy in Hanoi. The fact that the “Lancashire Mafia” of MPs allied to Straw have broken cover when he is thousands of miles away from the “scene of the crime” can’t be a coincidence says Guido’s informant. Or perhaps it can.
   
3. The number of non-awkward squad woman coming forward is evidence of the manicured hand of the sisterhood in action say some. Harman is to be the beneficiary and her husband Jack Dromey encouraged or allowed the names to come out from Labout HQ.
4. Which leads Guido to something that had been bugging him. Dale and others say Downing Street leaked the “handful” of names. Why? That would only make sense if this was to be a spin firebreak. It isn’t, it is dangerously close to snowballing, which is why Brown is sacking anyone who is exposed as disloyal pour encourager les autres.

The tip that Guido finds the most credible is the fifth: the original leak was from within Labour HQ and there are, says the source, in total 23 requests from MPs for nomination papers. The same source says that they believe Roy Kennedy leaked the story or caused the story to be leaked. The source paints a picture of Labour HQ as thoroughly demoralised and points out that unlike the Downing Street apparatchiks, the Labour HQ apparatchiks will still keep their jobs if Brown goes. Labour HQ staff have a vital interest in the survival of the Labour Party, not the survival of Gordon.