Sir Ronnie “PFI” Cohen donated £1.8 million to Labour in the past and bankrolled Gordon’s ascendency to the top. Regular readers will remember that at one time the venture capitalist had a direct debit paying £20,000 a month to the party. He pretty much owned Gordon Brown.

Bad news for Ed Miliband then, as it seems this once loyal party donor has drifted away. Guido was most surprised to see Ronnie pop up on BBC 4’s “Justice: Fairness and the Big Society” as an audience member, quick to spin for Cameron:

“The gap between rich and poor is getting bigger. Those left behind find it extremely difficult to rise out of poverty. The government hasn’t been able to do anything much about that even though it’s cost an absolute fortune for decades… I think what the Big Society really means is that space between government and the private sector, which needs to deal with social issues in a professional way. And Cameron has said that every penny out of the hundreds of millions of pounds that are unclaimed assets in bank accounts will got to create a Big Society bank, who’s role will be to empower those who want to help others.”

Watch here from exactly 40 minutes in.

If the Tories hadn’t made enough of a mess from dodgy non-domiciled donors it would be worth trying to turn Ronnie…