‘Tis not because he was Labour’s first and probably best blogging MP, not because he is now an always-on-message whip for New Labour, nor because his blog has become missable and bland since he became a whip. Not because his blog is always bloody crashing. Because his guest in the public gallery at PMQs today is Shakira. As he told Spy “Why would someone like her want to be seen with an overweight MP like me?” Guido could cry, why, ohhh why… Who cares about Blair, Dave, Ming – BBC Parliament, Guido knows you read this, MOVE THE CAMERA UP, whatever, wherever!

A question of priorities in the Fawkes household saw us Catholics flipping pancakes on Shrove Tuesday instead of down at Vinopolis with the Opus Dave crowd – despite receiving two invites from CCHQ. Baby Ms Fawkes (seemingly fully recovered) appreciated the effort – Guido arrived as everyone was leaving so can’t report the Cameroonie mood there. Thought I saw Iain Dale strutting out into the night, so perhaps he will have a report.

Sans alcohol, Guido jumped back on his scooter as confused Tories sought taxis in deepest darkest Bermondsey sarf o’ the river. Speeding through the night to Foyles where the Taxpayer’s Alliance had kept a single glass of champagne aside. Bump into bloggers like Mr and Mrs Wat Tyler, Tim Montgomerie and the ever rockin’ Andrew Ian Dodge amongst many others.

Consensus here was that if Cameron is looking for a fight with the right, he is not going to get one. “We should let him fight and win or lose the election on his own terms”, “More than anything we want him to beat Brown”, “I don’t know what he is about, but he seems to be making progress” and “What is going on with your beard?” were the kind of comments people said to Guido.

UDATE : Dale does have the dope.

The probability of the English voting to be ruled over by two left-wing members of the Scottish Raj must be small. England voted in the most for the Tories at the last election, now the re-invigorated Tories are likely to face two tired old faces. Dave is one lucky politician.

Incidentally, it’s worth watching online today’s edition of Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics – Jenny and he tore into all the LibDem candidates mercilessly. Watch them squirm.

This is the scene, as snapped by a Guido co-conspirator this morning, outside Consigliere Mills’ mortgage-money-back-to-backing casa della lavanderia.

The paparazzi are on resignation-watch. Ominously, when asked yesterday if the Prime Minister gave his full support to Tessa Jowell, the PMOS said “yes”. Just like he did before Blunkett went. It seems to Guido that we are expected to believe that Mills was more honest with his accountant than his wife., that Mills was lying to the Italian authorities originally and is now telling the truth. It is all a bit iffy.

(Incidentally Guido welcomes pictures emailed by blog reading co-conspirators so if you catch something interesting on your camera-phone, let me know.)

My view is that a Ming backer squashed publication of the phantom YouGov poll (YG#1) when the poll showed Huhne narrowing the gap impressively. The second poll (YG#2), funded by a Huhne backer, had an element of push polling in it with leading questions which even my YouGov source admitted where a tad shady.

The only hard polling evidence is that Ming and Huhne are nearly within a margin of error on first preferences and that the majority of second preferences will go to Ming. The “Greenwash” smear on Huhne looked to me like a petulant Hughes backing op, Hughes also bitch-slapped Huhne early on and Hughes backers suspect Huhne of being more right-wing than he now professes. Hughes is the choice of sandal wearers and they will not switch to a multi-millionaire City refugee easily. Hughes’ second preferences will go to Ming in great numbers. Phone polling by young LibDem activists (enjoy Ming’s gift vouchers kids) also gives it to the old man. While Guido was writing this (a little before midnight) the betting market switched favourites. Guido has been in close contact with one of the biggest political punters throughout the last month (a player who can account for one-third of the daily market volume), he reckons that Huhne’s market manipulator (who disappeared this weekend) will be looking at a middling five-figure loss.

Nick Robinson tonight on the Ten O’Clock News will say that “the BBC understands that..” David Cameron intends to give a Statement of Principles tomorrow. This may be spun as the “almost Clause 4 moment”. The Conservative party membership will be called upon to vote on it. This will face down right-wing critics with a “the membership backs change” definitive verdict. The old right headbangers will be buried.

Sorry to spoil the scoop Nick.

Have been with baby Ms Fawkes down at Paediatric A&E – weekend from hell involving puking and shitting gastro-intestinal technicolour mess 24/7 non-stop. Best quote of the weekend from a London taxi driver, looking at Guido with puke dripping down his jacket “ahh, the joys of fatherhood”.

Some stuff on Consigliere Mills has come to Guido’s attention as well as some more muck-throwing amongst the LibDems… back soon.

Guido’s man hiding behind the GMTV sofa emails to say that in the interview just recorded to go out Sunday, he was not brilliant. Asked if he would work harder on his performance at PMQs, Ming said