Michael, a co-conspirator, writes:

Seen at 2.15 p.m. today, on the Holloway Road near Highbury Corner, a shuffling near derelict figure in dirty scuffed jeans, run-down trainers and raggedy-arsed donkey jacket.

A double-take. Yup, that rheumey, red-faced pallor.  It is indeed Damian McBride.

“Guido sends his regards,” I yell.  No response.  He looked ruined.

Ratted more like.  Do continue to send sightings…

Further to Guido’s story about the BACP Crisis Meeting Over Draper, the psychotherapist’s professional body has confirmed that the

BACP has received a number of queries regarding Derek Draper to which we are responding. Any complaints received will be treated seriously and processed according to our Professional Conduct Procedures.

As soon as they are known, the outcomes of all Professional Conduct Procedures are published in our journal Therapy Today (which automatically goes out to all 30,200 BACP members) and also to the general public via our website. All such proceedings are conducted on the principles of natural justice. All parties to any complaint have a reasonable period during which to make their representations.

Guido understands that Dr Annie Hickox, a qualified clinical psychologist who has worked in the NHS for more than 20 years and holds qualifications up to and including a PhD (unlike Dolly) is one of many who have written to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy in order to register concern. Dr Hickox says Draper “clearly is not fit to work in his chosen field”.

Draper’s wife Kate Garraway is presenting “The Biggest Loser” on ITV weekdays at 4 p.m., Guido will resist the obvious temptation…

This has been building up for a few weeks and now Guido is getting calls from Dead Tree Press diarists, it is probably time to bring it out into the open.  Is this a picture of a long-haired 22 year-old David Cameron?

The pictures are taken from a video of a Sunrise Party held in the summer of 1988.   You decide…

WARNING TO PICTURE EDITORS : PHOTOS & VIDEO COPYRIGHT
OUR LAWYERS ARE BASTARDS

Contact Guido.Fawkes@order-order.com for rights.

Stephen Glover’s media column in the Indy rakes over the Labourgraph’s dishonest handling of Smeargate.  It is a pretty fair summary of the affair which Guido went over briefly here.  Suffice to say the Labourgraph’s political team don’t come out of either account very well.

Glover reckons Ben Brogan is the best hope of  restoring a semblance of sane editorial coherence from the Telegraph‘s political reporting:

Last week, Ben Brogan joined The Daily Telegraph as its chief political commentator, having been political editor of the Daily Mail. Perhaps he will help restore some balance to the paper’s political coverage. On the one hand, its political staff has been closer than was prudent to No 10. On the other, Simon Heffer has been tossing rotten cabbages from the right in the direction of the Cameroons.

Disorder has flourished under the editorship of a man, Will Lewis, who is neither a natural Tory nor especially knowledgeable about politics. Brogan’s role will be partly to mend fences with David Cameron, but there is also a good deal of general reconstructive work to be done to the paper’s political reputation. How could The Daily Telegraph ever get so close to a man like Damian McBride?

Ben Brogan is a good journalist, his blog was just about the only MSM political reporting blog that Guido really respected as a competitor.  Most hacks use their blogs for stuff they can’t get in the paper.  Brogan’s Daily Mail blog was often better than his stuff in the paper and it was very much a real-time competitor.  There is however one prophetic blog post that Guido suspects he would rather forget.  It was written after McBride’s 3 a.m. knifing of Ruth Kelly:

One Day the Truth About McBride Will Out
03 October 2008

When the Day of Reckoning comes and those of us who know are free to say what we know, Damian McBride will emerge with great credit from the madness of the past few years. … When the cry went up that there had to be changes in No 10, what they meant was McBride had to go. By the time we left Manchester he was being blamed for everything, including the credit crunch and the disappearance of Shergar. Such was his influence that like Macavity his prints were seen on every bit of damaging briefing. It became easy to blame him for every transgression, real or imagined. In fact, he was a victim of his own success. Damian is many things, but not an innocent. His role, by its nature, involved bad business at the crossroads.

But the McPoison of caricature is just that. There is far more to him than most realise. Few can match him for political insight, mischief making exuberance, stamina or that see-round-a-corner skill that few in politics possess. His intelligence was always Grade A, whether it was on election outcomes or how power was flowing. The Tories certainly have nothing like him, save perhaps George Osborne.

What does his departure mean for Gordon Brown? McBride remains in No 10 as an adviser on long-term strategy. The PM will continue to have him to hand. But his enemies will be on the look-out for signs that he is still speaking to the likes of me, so I don’t expect him to return phone calls for a while. Which means the PM will be without the best media handler he’s had. We’ll miss the service, not to mention the in-flight quizzes, and perhaps that’s no bad thing. He may wonder whether it was wise to give up a high-flier’s career in the Civil Service to run away with this circus. Of course, I’m an unreliable witness. But I’m certain of this: you will read a lot in the coming days about Damian McBride, and you shouldn’t believe more than a fraction of it. The true story is far better.

Or perhaps far worse.

Flicking through the Budget Red Book (as one does) Guido’s eye alights on page 131. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is cutting £44 million from “animal disease surveillance through a more risk-based approach to monitoring and enforcement and by sharing costs with industry“.

The same beloved “risk-based approach” as was advocated by the then Chancellor Brown and his SpAd, Ed Balls, for financial markets?   The same.

Just as Swine Flu approaches British shores?  Don’t worry, it started in America…

For those who missed this on Friday evening, here is a reminder.  There is a petition on the PM’s official website calling for him to resign.

It was in the hundreds when Guido first highlighted it, it got into the thousands over the weekend.  This morning it is above ten thousand.

When people start emailing it around offices it will climb into the tens of thousands.  Be patient, the Downing Street database server got overloaded over the weekend and petitioners had to try more than once to register their support.

Tell him to “Just Go!”