Ming’s poll numbers are the worst since the Lib Dems were founded, his performance at PMQs is painfully embarrassing (as is his feeble line that he trots out repeatedly – “If leadership was all about performing at PMQs, William Hague would be PM”, oh purrleease…)

Puja Durbari has been brought in to spin for him, remind him what day of the week it is and administer his medication. She has relevant PR experience working for the party in parliament and for Oxfam. So she knows all about hopeless charity cases.

Have the Tories voted for UK independence? What exactly is Bill Cash on about? In the FT he had a letter claiming:-

“The Conservative party as a whole last week voted to support my backbench amendment to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, expressly to override the European Communities Act 1972 by providing the legislative means to deregulate European burdens on British business and make this binding on the British judiciary. The bill has now gone to the House of Lords.”

Did Guido miss something?

UPDATE : It appears that 128 Tories did indeed vote to abolish the primacy of the EU over British parliamentary sovereignty. Did they all understand that they were so voting is debatable. Bill Cash is to be congratulated for his ingenuity.

Always on message James Purnell told BBC News 24 that they wouldn’t be adding the £400 to the party’s coffers raised from selling Cherie and Alastair Campbell’s autographed Hutton Report. He wouldn’t say who bid for it, or what has happened to the money. Nor do we know if the copy was actually stolen government property or purchased for £70 from HMSO.

You are only a mere citizen and voter, so you don’t need to know how or who secretly funds the governing party. Sometimes the arrogant audacity of these people is infuriating.

This petition is worth signing.

Pulling Power Launch Party – tonight, 7:30pm, downstairs @ the Red Lion Pub.

This is the new dating service for political singles. Guido would like to go (just to report on the totty situation). Alas, Mrs Fawkes says no.

Email camera-phone pictures of love’s young blossom to : Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com

Everyone is keeping a death-watch eye on Ming at the moment because he is doing persistently badly at PMQs. Did he do better? No. He asked about Dunblane, the school massacre of 10 years ago, and why hadn’t a national gun register been kept? Well, Mr Blair said handguns had been banned, just as he said later to other questioners worried about stabbing, after the London schoolboy’s murder last week, that steps had been taken.

Strange to say, Sir Ming Campbell, sticking to his script, regardless of the fact the question had already been asked, then said: three weeks ago the PM said the Home Office was fit for purpose, John Reid says it’s not. Who’s right? Which is it? Interesting here, Mr Blair is quite gentle with Ming Campbell, and went through it all quite kindly. It’s as if it suits him to keep him where he is, rather than cudgel him into the ground, as he did with Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown.

White hits the bullseye, Blair is either showing his tender caring side for aged opponents or he wants to keep Ming in place and flatlining the Lib Dems for as long as possible.

Guido is reliably informed that the value of Euan Blair’s scholarship is approximately $100,000. A generous scholarship for a middling ability student with an upper second from Bristol. Playboy Euan will fit in at Yale, alma mater of his dad’s buddy George Bush, who majored in drinking with a specialism in chasing girls.

So who paid? U.S. sources say it is not any government programme, but given the popularity of Tony Blair in the U.S. the surname would have opened the coffers of many Anglophile foundations. Who knows, maybe the treasury of the Skull and Bones Society helped out the son of the closest ally of the society’s most powerful member?

Euan could of course be “tapped” to become one of the fifteen new initiates selected each year to join the ranks of the Skull and Bones. Dubya himself followed in his father’s footsteps in becoming a member. As we have learnt, nothing is impossible with the Blairs.

Bashing and exposing politicians, lying lobbyists, sleazy spin-merchants, sell-out wonk-whores and their tame media mouthpieces requires information. You make this blog happen. Sources are anonymous (unless you want credit*). Who is to blame really? If it is your boss, you know. If you know “the line” is a lie, ask yourself why you got into politics; was it to cover up the truth or tell it?

*You may get a “Conspiracy Member” T-shirt.

If you missed Oaten pumping iron yesterday on the Daily Politics, you could have seen him last night doing a psycho-babble piece of dubious honesty and self-awareneness on Newsnight [link may change]. He seemed to Guido to basically be claiming that the reason he liked to be ****** whilst being ****** *** was because of the pressures of parliament. Mrs Fawkes exclaimed at this point “if he had time enough to go renting boys he had time enough to go home to his wife”.

Some will have particularly relished his Portcullis House cry on the shoulder with Oona King, where she regaled us with the tale of her begging the whips to be allowed to go home to see her partner once a week. No really. Could these two ex-MPs* be bidding to replace Abbot and Portillo as politico-media tarts?

At the end of Oaten’s piece Paxman’s face was a tribute to self-control and shows that he is a professional worth every penny of the million quid that those of you stupid enough to pay in TV licence fees pay him. Even so Paxo’s eyes betrayed his inner feelings.

UPDATE : Yes, the Oaten competition result is overdue. Patience – got a new t-shirt design coming.
*He will be.

UPDATE : In the comments some LibDems claim it is a non-story. Well Ming told journos at a lunch yesterday “Eric Forth was a friend of mine. Eric Forth was born within a mile of me. He went to school about half a mile away. I deprecate any effort to begin electioneering under any circumstances in any by-election until the writ has been moved by the party with responsibility for doing so. If that were done I disapprove and I will make sure my disapproval is known.”

Sky’s blogging Adam Boulton has some nice things to say about The Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze and Hugo Rifkind the Times’ blogging diarist and occasional comment maker on here blatantly plugs that we posted Tony a copy in a “whiter than white” envelope. In return let Guido plug Hugo’s blog site – go make comments – he does need the traffic.

Alas, Iain Dale vetoed Guido’s plan to hand out hundreds of copies of the book to MPs to wave at PMQs today. Typical, none of Guido’s plans to disrupt parliament ever seem to meet with success.