According to a tweet from Tom Watson, Gloria DePiero is taking over from Geoff Hoon in Ashfield Gloria having won the Labour nomination in Ashfield. She brings a bit of glamour to the people’s party and is the exception to the rule that politics is show business for ugly people.

Blair is said to have had a mid-life crush on Gloria.  Guido can’t fault him for that, she was the best thing on GMTV.  Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more of her…

Sir Michael White warns…

“I warned Alastair Campbell, and I’m warning Andy Coulson too – but will they listen?”

Timed to coincide with the Unite strike the Tories have launched a campaign using Facebook’s connect utility against Cash Gordon, and to “campaign against the new ‘militant tendency’ in the Labour Party”.

The innovative thing about this is the “competitive campaigning” aspect, you score points by sharing it with Facebook friends, emailing links, reading campaign notes.  All to advance up a league table…

The campaign of course has a Twitter hashtag, #CashGordon.

Kevin Maguire never tires of telling us that “nothing is too good for the workers“ so it was no surprise when a co-conspirator sent this picture of our Kevin with the toffs in the VIP enclosure at Cheltenham.

Guido’s tipster at the races revealed that Kevin had the “Premier” package, including a table for the day, champagne reception, morning coffee, 4 course luncheon including wine, afternoon tea and a complimentary bar.

Whilst his mate Charlie Whelan brings the country to a halt Kevin was enjoying the sport of kings and cheering on his bets. 

Guido caught up with Kevin yesterday just before the last 5.15 race, it was clearly a long hard day:

Kevin Maguire Blackberry bloke was so obvious it was laughable.
Guido Fawkes You could have smiled.
KM Got any tips for the 5.15?
GF Free World at 7/1
KM I’ll put £5 on cause couldn’t bear it to win and not be on.

It lost.

Pretty good week for the blog, Monday’s CCHQ floor-plan was an object of fascination to thousands of readers and revealed that Ashcroft was out of Tory HQ.  To the Tory staffer who claimed that it was out of date, Guido has to tell him that it is more likely to be his version that is out of date.  Guido was first to report that Transport Minister Sadiq Khan had been caught lying and ordered to repay thousands. Thanks to EyeSpy.MP we were first to reveal (Sarah’s Discreet Tête à Tête Tweeted) that the dodgy non-dom Lord Paul was having lunch with Sarah Brown – before she had even finished her dessert.  The Race to Be Dave’s Downing Street Mouthpiece was the post that resulted in the most, errrm, ‘feedback’ from the Westminster politico-media village.

The email that tickled Guido the most was the one from a Jehovah’s Witness complaining that Guido had compared the LibDem theme tune to “a Jehovah Witness recruitment ad“.  They attached an MP3 of their choir and Guido confesses that it was in comparison Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

If you were not one of the 57,785 visitors viewing 384,508 pages over the last seven days, here are the seven most popular stories (in order of popularity) that you missed:

• Cash Carrying Charlie Whelans Pop into Downing Street
• On and On and On
• Yes Wee Can
• Beware the Whelan in Sheep’s Clothing
• Lib Dem Choir Clanger
• Liam Gets His Fingers Byrnt
• EXCLUSIVE : Sadiq Khan Caught Lying to Lyon
  Tells Standards Commissioner He Can’t Remember ‘Mistaken’ Claim

You’re either in front of Guido, or you are behind…