David Miliband will guest edit next week’s New Statesman as the beleaguered lefty mag desperately attempts to bring about a turnaround to its drastic decline. Not only has the banana-eating former Foreign Secretary enlisted his old friend Tony Blair as a contributor, but the edition will feature an interview with none other than the defeated Labour leadership candidate’s brother, Ed. Awkward…

It isn’t all bad news over at NS towers however, as early projections suggest sales are on the up following Mehdi Hasan’s departure this week. Guido looks forward to watching HuffPo’s traffic plummet in the near future…

Dave is skiving off work early this afternoon so he can watch the tennis. Rather than sort out the impending Lords reform crisis the PM will have a few extra hours chillaxing time as he cheers on Andy Murray in his Wimbledon semi-final. Maybe he can share a TV with an old friend:

Could this be @Andy_Murray's year? Fingers crossed – assuming the Great British Weather behaves in SW19—
Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) July 06, 2012

Big drink tonight if Andy wins…

Guido couldn’t help but raise a smile…

David Cameron has taken a battering on the blogs today with both ConservativeHome and LabourList revealing damaging new statistics about the PM’s waning popularity. Polling undertaken by Lord Ashcroft has found that a staggering 43% of  ConservativeHome readers see Cameron as a vote-loser, with a paltry 36% backing his electoral prowess. ConservativeHome gunning for Dave is ominous in the long-term. He has been warned…

LabourList is pushing a Commons report that shows membership of the Conservative Party has dropped by almost a third since Cameron became leader. The slump is pretty damning even considering that membership is usually cyclical, rising before a new leader is chosen and falling afterwards – hence why Labour’s membership numbers seem relatively flattering. Holding a leadership election to boost the coffers seems a tad extreme…

Evgeny Lebedev has suffered a huge hit to his pocket after his company announced losses of £24 million for the Independent, i and Evening Standard newspapers over the last financial year. Things were particularly bad for the Indy, which made a pre-tax loss of £18 million. Owen Jones may not get that pay rise he is lobbying after…

Total losses for Lebedev Holdings rose by 22.5% while an unnamed Indy director took home over half a million quid in his pay package – the same amount of money being haemorrhaged by Lebedev’s rags each week.

What a way to run a business…

Nick Clegg today hoisted the rainbow gay pride flag above Whitehall to mark what he calls “a new era of pride” in Westminster. The message was clearly lost on the LibDems fighting a council by-election in Kingston, which they won by 23 votes. They have been accused by gay rights group Stonewall and their Tory counterparts of mounting a homophobic campaign against the Conservative candidate. LibDem leaflets featured a silhouetted picture of Adrian Amer, who is gay, with the caption: “it’s always a straight fight here in Grove Ward“. Classic Liberal attack line that Simon Hughes used against Peter Tatchell most memorably back in the 80s…

Louise Mensch admitted on Question Time last night that using Class A drugs had “messed with her brain“. Guido would never have guessed…

Via @liarpoliticians.

Louise Mensch tells Question Time…

“I did serious drugs and it messed with my brain.”