This cartoon was last used in April 2008.  Hopefully Clarke will do more than spin his wheels pointlessly this time.

Guido is getting worried that we have heard nothing from Dolly for some time.  His Twitter no longer tweets and his belligerent banter has burned out.  His Life Support book is on offer for £2.99 in Oxfam.  It was only a month ago that he was hosting the book’s glittering launch party attended by the likes of the powerful Damian McBride and glamorous Kate Garraway, host of TV’s “The Biggest Loser”.

Please buy his book, Guido is getting worried.

Picture taken yesterday in the Oxfam bookshop on Strutton Ground, Westminster by the Stray Taoist.

April saw a total of over 3.6m pageviews from 1,382,879 visits by 347,994 visitors making 2,995,765 pageviews plus 680,207 views via RSS feed readers.  Not bad for one guy with a laptop, Blackberry and a penchant for Guinness. With traffic averaging over 100,000 pageviews daily this blog puts traditional political publications like the New Statesman in the shade, forcing the likes of the Indy’s Steve Richards (no fan of Guido: “neither daring or clever”, the feeling is mutual*) to admit that  nevertheless yours truly

is in my view one of the most influential figures in the British media. One day this week I heard five items on the Today programme that followed up his stories or his observations. Politicians have not learnt how to cope with an individual who has as much impact as entire newspapers.

How that growing realisation must really burn Polly, Aaronovitch, Yasmin, Jenkins, Sir Michael and the rest of the commentariat’s mediasaurs.  Like acid.

Examine the front page media agenda last month: Smeargate, Snouts in the Trough, MPs’ expenses and of course the developing “Gordon is bonkers” meme, all topped off nicely with a round of mea culpas on the inside comment pages from the shamed copy takers in the Lobby.  Not forgetting the Damian McBride coup de grâce and resignation tribute.  Whose acid house tunes were the media elite humming?

Many thanks to you the readers and the advertisers who make this blog more profitable than both the Guardian and Independent combined.

*See also Steve Richards: Fails Numeracy Test and Steve Richards : “Voters Aren’t As Clever As Me”.

Labour MPs are in complete disarray and the Tories in the form of Alan Duncan reckon the Prime Mentalist is “treading rapidly into realms of complete and utter lunacy”.

The thing is, Labour politicians seem to agree:

• Mandelson conceded: “It is indeed turning into a bit of a week. It never rains but it pours, it seems.”
• David Blunkett admitted “We are on a treadmill and we have got to get off”.
• Tony Wright, the level headed chair of the Public Administration Committee says: “It is rather a large under-statement to say that we are in a bit of a mess.”
• Gordon Prentice said Gordon’s loony tunes YouTube video “was just too horrible to watch.”
• Tom Harris warns: “‘Governments fall apart when discipline fails.”
• Bob Marshall-Andrews judges matters thus “He’s had it. He’s finished. The Prime Minister is complete blown chaff… All my colleagues think so too. For the first time in my life I’ve seen them united. They are united in despair.”
• Blunkett wants Labour to “avoid self-inflicted wounds”.

Meanwhile rumours circulate that Charles Clarke is ready to inflict some wounds by standing as a stalking horse candidate.  A summer of fun awaits…