Guido hears that today’s Local Government Association Conference was a right hoot, well perhaps not, but Eric Pickles used his speech there to zero his sight and take aim squarely at The Guardian.

It seems he is coming good on Tories pre-election promise to put public sector job adverts online rather than using taxpayers’ money to subsidise the otherwise unsustainable Guardian business model. Without those public sector adverts the paper is going to be in serious trouble. Not even more deals with Apple will be able to save them. Tragic…

Hugh Muir is reporting that Chris Bryant has emailed all the Labour newbies offering to take them on tours of the Palace of Westminster, just in-case they are called upon to do so for guests. Of course all this creeping around the new kids has nothing to do with the fact that most of the Parliamentary Labour Party hate Bryant’s guts. With the Shadow Cabinet elections coming up he is going to need at least some friends if he is going to have a chance.

Perhaps he can give them tips on how not to start their parliamentary career too…

Scandal looks set to rock Kensington and Chelsea Council as two Tory councillors have just quit following the circulation of, err, extremely inappropriate material, via their council email accounts. All sorts of rumours are flying around about Cllr’s Barry “filthy” Phelps and Mark Daley, to the extent that careful ConHome have shut down their comments on the thread that broke the news.

Apparently due to the “sensitivity” of the darker reasons behind the resignations…

UPDATE: The emails sent. Not porn, but weird and disgusting.

The last government were extremely proud of the car-scrappage scheme that they borrowed from Obama. They spent £400m to ensure the UK scraped out of recession – which it did, just, with January’s paltry 0.1% growth figure. The scheme was then extended until February.

Today’s figures reveal that new car registrations are up 10%, without the government incentives to buy, raising serious questions about the need for the scheme in the first place, or the extension, both of which were against Treasury advice. The fact that the subsidy equally went overseas to German and Japanese manufacturers was glossed over by Mandelson.

The numbers pour water on Labour’s current attempts to deny that they were spending more and promising the world because it was an election year. How can they possible jusitify this £400m political spending, forced through only to ensure the UK came out of recession before election day?

Tory MP Penny Mordaunt said…

“When I was director of Kensington and Chelsea Council, I discovered that one of our local hospitals was hiring out one of its closed – but fully-equipped wards – to a film company to use as a film set. To add insult to injury, the movie was a pornographic one. Although I cannot claim to have seen the final picture – as I understand, these things are no longer claimable on parliamentary expenses…”

Given that the new Office of Budget Responsibility hasn’t even been enshrined in law properly yet, and barely has a sign on the office door, losing its chairman this early doesn’t look good. Sir Alan Budd has let it be known he is off in a sudden and somewhat mysterious move, leaving the organisation head-less in the run up to the Spending Review. A tad embarrassing for the Chancellor as despite the three month contract Budd was on, it was expected he would be in the post for rather longer. A headache now as a suitable replacement needs to be sought urgently. There are no obvious candidates.

Giving up the right to publicly crunch the numbers was a big jump for Osborne and it has already contradicted his message early on regarding growth figures. Budd’s jumping ship so early doesn’t exactly scream confidence in the new regime.

UPDATE : Some speculation in the City that the 73 year-old Budd prefers comfortable and lucrative board positions to stressful, politically charged Treasury work with austere financial compensation.  He previously described the OBR job as “the most exciting challenge of my professional life”. Too exciting perhaps…

With the summer recess not far off, Gordon’s friends are putting it about that he has been offered various academic posts, telling the Glasgow Herald “It’s true he has been approached by several academic institutions regarding various things. None of these is settled or completed as yet. There have been approaches in this country and in others.”

Meanwhile Gordon is relaxing in Kirkcaldy, cashing £1,270-a-week, plus pension top ups from taxpayers, to rock in his chair.