With half the Shadow Cabinet descending on Birmingham this morning there was one very obvious face missing from Ed’s May election campaign launch. How odd that local MP and potential Mayor of Birmingham Liam Byrne was not on the platform, or even invited. Guido has been tipped that there was a row about Byrne, with Labour’s “Campaign Coordinator” (and rival candidate supporting) Tom Watson blocking Baldamort’s attendance.

Though Byrne’s people are denying it, he somehow ended up spending the day in Harlow…

Guido has had a rather busy afternoon offline, but don’t forget to catch up with yesterday’s Daily Star Sunday column.

Find out what a private Andrew Cooper poll for the Tories says about each of the three leaders and the public’s word association with them, the latest from Byrne and Brum, and whose pasties are not being hit…

You could have had all this yesterday…

Where is Iain McNicol? Certainly not in Victoria Street, Not with Ed Miliband and the rest of the Shadow Cabinet launching Labour’s local elections campaign in Birmingham.

According to a Guido co-conspirator inside Labour HQ Iain McNicol has, in true David Brent style the day after Labour’s worst by-election defeat in 30 years, got on a plane and went on a two-week skiing holiday in the US. The timing could not be worse.

Astonished Guido called the Labour Party press office, got no comment, so decided to tweet the man himself:

@IainMcNicol Am told you are on 2 week holiday. Is that correct? Press Office won't give straight answer.—
Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) April 02, 2012

The press office then called back and said he had indeed gone on holiday for a few days. They would not confirm if it was in fact for 14 days, skiing or in America, they stressed however that he was in telephone contact.

Staff are appalled that any member of staff, let alone the General Secretary, would go on holiday in April before a tough local election campaign. Particularly after not forseeing the disaster in Bradford…

Tory MPs Matthew Hancock and Nadhim Zahawi argued in their modish 2011 book “Masters of Nothing“ that the banking crisis was partly due to a lack of women in trading rooms. Too much testosterone contributed to the debt crisis apparently. They backed up their argument with some mumbo-jumbo from neurobiology which basically dressed up stereotypes as science. Research just published by the Bundesbank based on an analysis of German bank executive teams from 1994 to 2010 suggests that this analysis is not backed up by the evidence. The research found that banks with a higher proportion of female executives “lead to a more risky conduct of business”.

So oestrogen-fuelled trading rooms will be no calmer…

Labour Shadow Cabinet John Trickett MP climaxes…

“We’re living through amazing times. For anyone on the Left… it’s like an orgasmic wet dream. Think about it: Capitalism in crisis again; unemployment’s on the rise and so is inflation.”