6lbs 1oz and an early caesarean… Many congratulations.

UPDATE: Official statement comes through:

“The Prime Minister and Mrs Cameron are delighted to announce the birth of their fourth child, a baby girl. Both the baby – who was born weighing 6lbs 1oz – and Mrs Cameron are doing very well. The PM and Mrs Cameron would like to thank the doctors and nurses at the hospital for their help and kindness.”

Looks like Nick might be forwarding those emails to Dave’s Blackberry for a little longer…

David Cameron allegedly went home on the evening of May 10th and told his wife that he wouldn’t be Prime Minister. 24 hours later he was in Downing Street. Publicly the line was that it looked like things were going the other way, but behind the scenes things were rather different. Guido has come across a document drafted in the Cabinet Office on the Sunday afternoon that showed just how far the coalition negotiations had reached and crucially what the civil service were expecting.

By Sunday it was clear to Scott McPherson of the Economic and Domestic Affairs Secretariat who the two parties in government were going to be. Labour is not mentioned once in the entire document. He pinged this document around to the key players, including the Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell’s office. The whole document shows the great hand that the civil servants had in guiding the structure of the coalition agreement, with a big tip of the cap to New Zealand. Funny that three days before the deal was done the mandarins already knew the result…

Millionairess Polly Toynbee is on the rampage against public service cuts again this morning:

“Many will see their good faith rewarded with a kick in the teeth. The bullying rudeness and sheer nastiness of Eric Pickles, the chill callousness of Francis Maude and the evident relish with which most ministers flourish carving knives at public services advertise their contempt.”

Whilst managing to get a plug of her book into her column, strangely Polly didn’t feel it necessary to declare any conflict of interests in her special pleading. Given the obvious financial pain Toynbee will be feeling when her husband’s six-figure “loyal public service” non-job at the Audit Commission is scrapped, her readers really should be told about the undue influence this is clearly having on her writing. In the U.S. there would be serious ethical concerns raised about failing to declare such a direct interest. Just because you have three houses to support is no excuse for a drop in journalistic standards…

Seems odd that young Christopher Myers (25) should go from driving William Hague (49) around his constituency during elections, where according to the Mirror, “although he never worked at Tory HQ in London… they became close during campaigns”, to become his third Special Adviser at the Foreign Office.

According to Peter McKay the FCO says the Foreign Secretary “needs another adviser because he has additional responsibilities, having bagged the Peter Mandelson title of First Secretary of State. Perhaps so, but Mandelson didn’t hire young friends as special advisers, so far as I know.” Quite.

Back as an MEP Caroline Lucas lamented the European Parliament “dragging its feet on the implementation of the rules for lobbyists.” So why then has she given a parliamentary pass to one?

Granted James Humphreys was a Green candidate at the last election, but he is also a former Downing Street civil servant, and not the first to walk through the revolving door of lobbying, or as he calls it “strategic communication”. He is the director and joint-owner of Woodnewton Associates who have a range of public sector clients. For now.

No mention of Humphrey’s severing any ties with the company while taking the taxpayers’ shilling.

Last year Lucas told the Compass Conference that she was dedicated to “curbing the influence of businesses and lobbyists on political decision-making”. Guido tried to put a call into her office to see how giving a lobbyist unfettered access to Parliament helps with this aspiration. It seems they have closed down until next month. Presumably she has gone to Climate Camp, though James is expected back in Woodnewton office tomorrow morning…

As thoughts turn towards lunch, spare a moment for the poor souls in the Palace of Westminster. There were grumbles this morning that coffee had gone up from the usual sixty pence to a whole pound. Not quite the “high street” prices promised by Speaker Bercow.

You would be hard pushed to get change out of a fiver for a coffee in Costa, Starbucks or Cafe Nero,  but panic not, it will still buy you a steak in Parliament…