As the post-Blair era comes ever closer, the two rival London gangs are squaring up to begin their fight for control of the one crucial piece of turf that matters, Westminster. In the West wearing blue colours it is the Notting Hill gang; hard-boy Hilton, the Govemeister, Bolesy, Georgie O and Ed Vaizey take on the Primrose Hill mob including; the Miliband bruvvers, Dougie Alexander, Ed Balls and Yvette C, all sporting red colours.

The Primrose Hill Blairites of Progress have launched their first pamphlet attack on Cameron’s Notting Hill gang. Guido can save you the bother of reading it, the Tory Clause IV moment is, they say, ‘Accept the Blair legacy’, like they accepted the Thatcherite legacy. So is that, “we’re all Thatcherites now”? Or “we’re all Blairites now”? Or just, “we’re all the same”?

The Mail on Sunday had an enigmatic story about Portillo. This follows the Sunday Mirror’s recent expose of a quickie fling with 31 year-old radio presenter and lingerie model Rachel Johnston (pictured).

It seems he is to be cited in a high society divorce as a result of a long running affair. The cuckolded husband has told hacks confidants he is disgusted at the behaviour of the Moral Maze panellist, whom he brands ‘a piece of shit’.

He is also furious with his wife, whom he accuses of wrecking their long-standing marriage. He believes she was so smitten with Mr Portillo she even had cosmetic surgery to enlarge her breasts because – in his words – “Portillo likes big breasts”.

“My wife is a social climber who has gone for somebody with a public profile and I want to nail that bloody bastard Portillo,” he told friends. He views Mr Portillo as a “hypocrite who smiled warm hellos to him at parties”.

Guido has had a restless night trying to remember who she is, this socialite with big fake breasts. She partied with Portillo in the moonlit shadow of the Temple of Venus in the Moroccan Roman ruins of Volubilis (Remember the place in 2001 where Portillo was filmed doing his disco daddy thing just before the Tory leadership battle that he lost?) Now who went on that famous trip?

Guido believes that capitalism is the bedrock of an open society and that “to be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything.”* But capitalism thrives best when it is free of corruption and dealings are done in the open. So Guido fails to understand why the Tories are opposed to legislation requiring fund managers to publish details of how they vote at company AGMs. Seems reasonable, they should already be informing their shareholders if not their competitors. Some corporate managers seem to run many firms for their own benefit rather than their owners benefit, like a nationalised industry. The Tories should propose to amend the legislation to ensure companies inform their owners of what they are doing. That would be standing up for the interests of capitalists and shareholders.
*Hat-tip.

Andrew Neil’s hunt for Boris Johnson’s successor proceeds. Topaz Amoore, who apparently “personifies the Sunday Telegraph slogan of brains and beauty”, is the only woman in the running.

Guido enjoyed the Johnson era at the Speccie, it was a lot of fun. If the rumours that Neil wants to sell off the Speccie’s townhouse building and move them in to the corporate HQ are true, it is a shame. The alcohol fuelled atmosphere at the Speccie helps give the magazine its effervescence. Something tells Guido that close proximity to the Barclay boy will ruin it.

Does Simon Hughes want to become the shadow minister for sound? His campaign is being run out of the Ministry of Sound’s offices. Centi-millionaire James Palumbo owns the M of S, famously he lent his limo to Millbank in 1997 for Mandy to use. Palumbo appears to have transferred his support from New Labour to Hughes. Makes sense, Simon Hughes is a well known raver.

Chris Huhne’s Manifesto launch was sparsely attended, Matthew Tempest from the Guardian was the only lobby hack who could be bothered to find his way to some godforsaken industrial estate in Wembley. Huhne himself was delayed, according to the Standard, because fog prevented Lembit from flying him back from Question Time in Wales.

His manifesto of platitudes contains a CV fib – in it he twice claims to have built “the largest team of private sector economists in the City in just 5 years… He is an experienced leader who built up the largest team of City economists in the private sector”. Err, no he did not.

Huhne was at IBCA for 5 years, which got swallowed up by Fitch, the New York bond ratings agency founded in 1913. They are in fact mainly bean-counters not economists, they are not the biggest team in the City, and in any event all the economists in the City are by definition private sector.

In Greenspan’s seminal essay in “Capitalism : The Unknown Ideal“ he has some good advice for Brown about government borrowing;

“government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government’s promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates… The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit… The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets. The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy’s books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion… The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves… This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”

Gordon Brown initiated mass sales of gold by the Bank of England some years ago when gold was trading at some $300 an ounce. Baby Miss Fawkes got an ounce of gold this Christmas worth over $500 an ounce. The government’s debt (including pension liabilities) has now broken the trillion pound barrier. Gilt edged government debt is no longer backed by gold under the Bank of England, but by ever rising taxes. This is Gordon Brown’s shabby secret…

As was mentioned in the latest podcasted act of self-humiliation (GuidoandtheMonkey.Com) it seems odd that the DfES Press Office has taken the step of denying that the Blessed Ruth Kelly is pregnant. How would the Press Office know? Imagine the scene: DfES spin merchant sidles into her office, “Minister, are we feeling alright this morning? Anything new for us to expect? Do you want to take the weight off your feet?”
The Blessed One : “What are you getting at?”
Spinner : “Well it’s just this rumour going round the bars in Westminster, are you up the duff again?”

Guido suspects it has been put about by Labour backbenchers to undermine her position. Mind you if it were true, it would be an immaculately timed conception, they would have to keep her position open for when she comes back after six months maternity leave…

Huhne came over as competent and Adam Rickitt as lightweight. The crowd were claptastically keen on Huhne.* Guido fell asleep, so the highlights as told to Guido by his City gambling source: “Rhodri Morgan making a tit of himselves by refusing to say if he was for/against the Iraq war or even where he stood/stands.”

City source “Rickitt is actually very intelligent, but knows very little/nothing about history, politics, current affairs… he referred to the war in Rwanda as ‘tootsies vs hootsies’”

Gay source “Rickitt did not look as good as in your picture“.

*Have stopped calling him Whatshisname and Whuhne because he could win.