Guido has just checked this blog’s server scrolls. A surge in readership can reveal intelligence (just like when al Qaeda are plannning something, pay-as-you-go mobiles call Peshawar a lot) and the blog is getting lots of hits from the servers in Downing Street, various other .gov.uk servers and Capita’s spinners at Financial Dynamics, as well as from Capita itself of course.

Incidentally, dodgy spinners LLM are, coincidentally, part owned by Financial Dynamics with whom they share a building. They are obviously all waiting for the next instalment.

Murdoch has an unfailing nose for sniffing the winds of political change. His easy switch of The Sun’s allegiance to Blair in the 90s shows his good judgement – he backs winners and breaks losers. Although Blair is a busted flush now and irrelevant to his future interests, he seems to be letting Rebekah Wade’s Sun become increasingly rabid in its support of New Labour despite the unpopularity of Blair. It’s like Pravda with tits today.

Blunkett’s columnn is a classic attack on Brown by proxy; “There are some people who blame Tony Blair for the latest ruckus. Come off it! Of course he takes responsibility. But does anyone REALLY think that in the middle of an 18-hour-a-day election campaign he has the time to ask about every contribution “Is this a loan or a gift?” You might just have thought that this was the job of the party treasurer, Jack Dromey, who suddenly became aware of it and went into quite a tizzy.”

When Murdoch senses Cameron is likely to win he’ll fire Rebekah and put in someone more sympathetic to the Tories. That will be a more reliable indicator of the election result than any poll.

They lie to the Lord’s Appointment Commission, they keep financial secrets from their own Treasurer and now they have forged the Chancellor’s signature.

On the left is Gordon Brown’s signature taken from the Treasury website, on the right is his signature taken from “his” email yesterday. Next they will tell us he didn’t do his own drawings. Is there no end to Labour lies and deceit?

Hat-tip : DrinkingFromHome

“There have been suggestions that this loan has resulted in the group being awarded government contracts. This is entirely spurious.” CEOs don’t resign for spurious reasons. This PQ was tabled yesterday. The answer will be illuminating.

Back in February Guido tipped betting on Blair to go in September at 8/1, just in time for the Labour party’s annual conference. The odds were slashed last week that he will go this year and have been as low as 4/1 to one on Betfair that he will go in Jul/Sep. Blair has surprised us before but most pundits think his sleazy end must come this year.

Ruth Turner was personally appointed by Tony Blair as his Special Adviser for Government Relations working out of Downing Street. An odd job title you might think, a SpAd liaison officer? Liaising with whom?

Well if you go back into the dark New Labour past of Ms Turner (and in places it is a little murky) you will see she was a leading light on the commission of the New Local Government Network the vanguard Blairite New Labour front organisation for “innovation and modernisation in local government”, trans. privatisation and outsourcing.

This is taken from the Labour party email sent immediately after Gordon sat down. Puke making isn’t it?

Charles Clarke reckons the Labour party treasurer Jack Dromey is useless; “you have to wonder how well he was doing his work”. The National Executive Committee chairman, Sir Jeremy Beecham, said “I don’t know how closely Charles has been involved in all this. He’s not been on the National Executive for a number of years.” Trans. “Sod off and keep your nose out of it.”

Now the whispered briefings begin, and as with everything nowadays in the Labour party it has to be seen through the prism of the Blair/Brown struggle. The Guardian’s Diary has a planted story from the Blairites putting the blame on the Labour party’s former General Secretary, Matt Carter and Jane Hogarth, Head of Labour’s Corporate Relations and Fundraising. Complete bollocks which tries to spin the blame as far away from Number 10 as possible. Downing Street’s David Levy and Tony Blair are ultimately responsible. Ruth Turner and John McTernan have supporting roles. The police will no doubt want to talk, with good reason, to Number 10 chief of staff Jonathan Powell as well.

It gets better, donors deprived of any real prospect of gongs are now planning to call in their loans. Labour will be some £6m short of cash without the ability to tap into any obvious vein of venality going forward. The union brothers are not going to bail Blair out, nor Brown as he needs to stand tough on public sector pay so as not to scare the voters. So selling the old HQ is a real prospect unless Lord Sainsbury wants to step in again.

UPDATE : Just noticed a dreadful piece by the Guardian’s political editor – it gives a new meaning to the term “whitewash”. The covert funding programme is because of what that pantomime villain the Daily Mail might say about those nice respectable and generous multi-millionaires. Sir Michael White anyone?