Who you gonna call when you need some cash? None better than Mandy, who gets out the begging bowl in an email to LabourList subscribers this afternoon. “Dear Comrade, oops, colleague…”, begins the latest in a raft of requests for donations from the Labour blog. Could it be they are trying to wean themselves off their reliance on union gold?

LabourList are “proudly sponsored” by the GMB, CWU, Unite and Unison, though in April they added one Benjamin Wegg-Prosser to their ranks as a Managing Partner. Wegg-Prosser is a Mandelson protégé who went on to become Tony Blair’s Director of Strategic Communications, famously drafting the “leaving the stage with the crowd wanting more“ memo. He is currently also the managing partner of Global Counsel, Mandy’s lobbying firm. If there is a coming battle for the heart and soul of the Labour Party, controlling the most popular Labour-affiliated website is a smart move…