Michael Foot, who recently died and is soon to be deified (though not as a result of one of Gordon’s recycled speeches), was a bit of a dark horse with the ladies.  According to his biographer the old firebrand admitted he had three affairs: with two of his secretaries and an Indian journalist at Tribune. ‘We had quite a close association at Tribune. We sometimes stayed after everybody else had gone and I sat on his knee. You can imagine sometimes things happened.’ recalls one aide.  Sounds almost as much fun as the Speccie under Boris…

Strangely one mistress when asked if she found him attractive replied ‘Not particularly, no. He wasn’t really.’

A Blairite source tells Guido that Ed Balls is already telling Labour colleagues that the blame for a potential Labour defeat lies with the Blairites for (a) rocking the boat with repeated attempted coups (b) getting caught money grubbing. Coincidentally he is expected to be Charlie Whelan’s chosen candidate against Blair’s protege Miliband. Nothing like getting your attack in first…

Cameron says of Labour they are

“…appalling people.”

This is the line-up of Labour figures who are either facing criminal charges for theft, have been suspended from the party, suspended from the Lords, found to be expense fiddling, offering to whore themselves out or some permutation of all of the above.  Byers, Hewitt, Hoon, Devine, Chaytor, Morley, Baroness Uddin, Lords Blackburn, Truscott, Snape and Moonie, last but not least, Margaret Moran.  To describe these people as morally flawed fails to capture their essence.  These are just some of the Labour politicians who have been caught.

The majority of Labour MPs were ordered to repay expense “over-claims” – fiddles in normal language. In the real world employees caught fiddling on this scale would be fired.  MPs are supposed to work for you, remember that on election day…

The petition to the Queen asking her to strip the “Right Honourable” status off Stephen Byers by removing him from the Privy Council is now approaching 4,000 signatures of support in less than 24 hours.

It seems to Guido that if he has been suspended from the Labour Party for bringing it into disrepute then his position is impossible and he should have the decency to resign from the Privy Council.  Byers swore an Oath when he became a member of the Privy Council that “by Almighty God to be a true and faithful Servant unto The Queen’s Majesty as one of Her Majesty’s Privy Council … And generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true Servant ought to do to Her Majesty.“ He has broken that Oath and brought dishonour to his office.  He should no longer be able to call himself “Right Honourable”, sign the petition:

“We, the undersigned, call on Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to strip Stephen Byers MP of his membership of the Privy Council due to his involvement in offering to sell access to Her Majesty’s Government for personal profit.”

Click here to sign the petition.

Peter Oborne’s The Triumph of the Political Class analysed the hounding of Elizabeth Filkin.  She was the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who was forced out of her job by the Labour whips in connivance with Downing Street.  They undermined her because she attempted to tackle the prevailing culture of corruption in politics. Excerpt here.

She who laughs last…