Tom Watson has been in Court today as a witness in Jim Devine’s fraud trial,  The Telegraph reports that Devine alleges that Watson and Labour whip Steven McCabe told him when “merry” in the Strangers Bar that he could take money from his office allowance to resolve his staffing problems. All he would need is a “friendly printers” to knock up the receipts. Not an excuse in law and both men deny the conversation ever happened, but it was the mention of “friendly printers” that got Guido thinking. What is a “friendly printer”?

Surely an organisation that was run by former Labour staffers and with a willingness to send differently worded invoices for the same product must be a “friendly printer”. Public Impact Printers are a “friendly printer” who were so helpful to the current Shadow Justice Secretary. Chris Huhne knows a thing or two about “friendly printers” too. Especially that one based in the same building as his constituency office.

Today’s guest publication The Scottish Daily Record has a heart warming story of some good news amongst all the evil ConDemmery that is seeing trees cut down and flatscreens taken from the unemployed.  Apparently “Marcia” who like many in her trade chooses not to share her surname, has turned to stripping because of George Osborne’s cuts.

“I expect we are going to see a lot more girls coming through the door once the cuts take effect.”

There’s one plan for growth…

UPDATE: Guido pressed publish on this post before realising Paul Waugh had found the story too. Great minds etc…

Guido will give away a prize next week if some PR company gets in touch with a freebie.

Sleazy sex-texter and employer of Russian spies Mike Hancock has been keeping his head down since the near weekly scandals that hit him last year. So hence Guido’s surprise when he read the other day that “Handy-cock” had been EyeSpyed handling brown envelopes. A picture of the incident landed in his inbox this morning. Can anyone out there explain what the dodgy member for Portsmouth was doing on Wednesday afternoon in Victoria Gardens and who the envelope was for?

There is no denying that Sally Bercow makes for hugely entertaining copy, but the odds against a challenge to her husband in the next year tightened last night. This morning’s papers were full of anonymous quotes from ministers In the Times there was one saying “There are limits but this goes too far. This is a fierce challenge to the dignity of Parliament. The sooner we are rid of the both of them, the better”. In the Mail another said the photo yesterday “brought Parliament into disrepute and was likely to hasten efforts to remove her husband as Speaker.”

The discontent is growing and coming from higher up the Tory ladder.

UPDATE: Another Tory backbencher comes forward describing the Bercow’s the “Marcoses of British politics.” Sally wasn’t too happy with on Radio 5 earlier.

Nick Clegg and all the King’s horses told Radio 4:

“We can’t just put Humpty back together again.”

There is something a little Gordon like about Ed Miliband’s flurry of activity today. The Prime Mentalist went through relaunch after relaunch and the Son of Brown’s latest attempt to lead the agenda has all the hallmarks of his metaphorical father. Ed is set to tell the people of Newcastle that they won’t have the same opportunities that their parents did because of the spending cuts. Once again the head is in the sand and the fingers are in the ears.

If the next generations suffer it will be for because of the tax burden they are under to service the government debt. Given every kid born under the last Labour government will have to overcome the weight of £17,000 as their share of the debt, it’s no surprise Labour’s pollster Stan Greenberg can pull out stats that say over 60% of people think life will be tough for the next generation. They’re broke…