The dwindling demoralised band of Bloggers for Davis complained bitterly that their idol was stitched up by the pinko BBC bias of Newsnight, positioning him in the old Carlton Club in front of a picture of Maggie. Typical trickery from the Beeb’s liberal conspiracy of coked-up chattering metropolitan elites they said.

Newsnight’s editor, Peter Barron, emails Guido to say it wasn’t quite like that:

Does he? Hasn’t he just totally mis-judged the party’s mood, even last night he weirdly conjoined a hard line on immigration with help for Africa in his supposedly compassionate development speech to the Centre for Social Justice. This core-votes tune shows he is tone deaf to the mood music of his own party. The speech was in any case a me-too speech – even down to picking up on Cameron’s attack on Christian Aid’s out of control propaganda spewing from its loony-left Trade Policy Unit (CA-TPU).

If Cameron wins by a landslide – and the Davis campaign team are now merely battling to avoid that humiliation – it will signal to the public that the nasty party is history. That should translate into more votes rather than core votes.

News from the David Davis Campaign
How to beat the LibDems
David spoke at a meeting in Winchester this morning – a Liberal Democrat held seat in the battleground county of Hampshire.

He was able to draw on his own experiences in fighting the LibDems to set out how the Conservative Party can tackle the threat they pose in the coming years.

“I know how to beat LibDems. I did it in my own constituency. They boasted they would decapitate me. Instead I trebled my majority”, he said.

That email was sent out from Basher’s bunker yesterday, much to the irritation of a Guido operative armed with a calculator. He points out that Basher originally won the seat in 1997 with a reduced majority of 7,514 over the LibDems (a swing against Davis to the LibDems of 9.5%). Such was his effectiveness as a campaigner against the LibDems that in 2001 his was majority was further slashed to 1,903 (another swing from Davis to the LibDems of 5.4%).

So 2005 was a panic in the face of that trend, Basher plagued CCO for support and resources were poured into the constituency to bolster his campaign. Tory HQ was bullied into mounting a hugely disproportionate effort into what was once a safe Tory seat. It worked, his majority was increased to 5,118, a swing back of 4.2%. But still well down on the majority he inherited originally. How can Basher claim he knows how to beat the Libdems when he has succeeded only in reducing his majority over them?

Paxman : “Its come to something in this country, hasn’t it, when you believe that people are prepared to put into Downing Street a man who has taken Class A drugs.”

Pretty close to what Guido predicted this morning. Guido is an admirer of Paxman’s style but he seemed to let Cameron off lightly. Is he losing his touch?

Interesting fact for Paxman to consider – Churchill was in Downing Street off his tits not only on a daily intake of whisky, champagne and brandy, but Benzedrine – a form of amphetamine (speed). Propped up by a dose of this stimulant wonder drug he defeated Hitler, who was himself wired on amphetamines. As were RAF pilots and the Luftwaffe. So Cameron will not be the first Tory PM to have done Class As – some of his illustrious predecessors were wired in office – Eden psyched himself up for speeches on speed.

Newsnight will be “compelling” says my man at the Beeb. Paxo interviewed Cambo in Northampton today. Guido hears that there was not that much in the way of sparks, in fact it was a bit dull in comparison to last week’s edition.

David Willets is on Question Time, Guido suspects his kids are being held hostage by Conway. “Grass us up on the £38 billion in tax cuts and you’ll never see ‘em again…”

Davis is speaking at a CSJ do in Kennington – Recess Monkey is running a little prize competition for those attending… (The Monkey is currently licking his wounded pride after being ignored by the Guardian today in their article on the “new wave of political bloggers”. It was about the “ones that matter” Recess).

“Don’t you think the British public has a right to know if the man who wants to be PM, and have his finger on the nuclear deterrent button, is a an ex-cokehead?”

After Paxo called Davis a shit, is there any doubt that Paxo is not going to let Cameron get away with his “the past is the past” line on drugs? Expect a question like the one above to be fired at Cameron.

Breathlessly the Guardian today reports that “A new wave of political bloggers is challenging Britain’s old media pundits. But who are they, and which ones matter?” It mentions some of the best sites in the article, including PoliticalBetting.Com and here, without linking to the sites. Doh! The interweb thingy is so confusing ain’t it? Ah well, I suppose Guardian readers can use Google.

UPDATE: The Guardian emails :

hi
Thanks for pointing out the problem. We’ve now inserted all the relevant links into the article which your readers can find http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,16559,1644361,00.html”>here if you wish to link to it.

Regards
Kirsten Broomhall
Guardian Unlimited

As you can see, in typical Grauniad style, they got their own link wrong. Its actually here.

Guido is outraged at the pornographic Cherie Blair calendar doing the rounds in Westminster – how dare they smear a blessed nun’s habit by associating it with that woman. Download here.

Bet a few lefties love the sight of that headline and are here in hope that there is a God. One minute you are the daughter of the most powerful woman on the planet, next you are reduced to humiliating yourself on reality TV show “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”.

Carol Thatcher clearly needs the money to spend on a hairdresser and has been reduced to worm and rat eating. Definite ratings winner – a lot of old miners, printers etc. will just love to watch.

Hypocritically, given their philosophy of self-help, the Tory party has scrounged £22.5 million off the state in the last five years. In parliament yesterday Harriet Harman, revealed that the Tories received £22.5m of political subsidies in the last five years.

And what did the taxpayer get for it in return? Hot air. Its a political dependency culture, politicians are parasites, always finding ways to subsidise themselves. The £20-a-day snought in the trough subsidy infuriates Guido.

At the next Tory hustings will someone ask the candidates do they support the generous £20-a-day lunch hour subsidy for MPs in the light of the 37p-a-day lunches for schoolchildren highlighted by pukka-geezer Jamie Oliver?