“This is a straight political battle with the Conservative Party and their allies in the media, and decency.” says Blunkett.

Guido asked Mike Smithson at PoliticalBetting.Com to use his influence with the powers that be to get a bookie to make a price in Blunkett going. Lo and behold, William Hill have decided to make my Christmas;

So, indecently, I’m off to bet a few quid on Blunkett having a few problems soon. Its de ja vu all over again.

Mr Decency seems to forget his defrauding of the taxpayer to ferry his mistress about at the public’s expense, his arrogant ordering of civil servants to take care of his mistress’ Nanny problems, his latest shady share dealings and the dodgy tax dodging trust.

Notice that in his statement he says “I have not made any representations to any government department or agency on behalf of DNA Bioscience since returning to government.” What about before?

Blunkett was paid a fat five-figure sum by British ORT. Which is the UK wing of World ORT, the largest Jewish non-governmental education and training organisation in the world. (That’s him pictured on the right, not sure who the girl is...) According to their website;

“ORT’s work by governments and agencies around the world is the fact that money raised by your national organisations is supplemented on a matching funding basis at a ratio of approximately 20:1. In other words, every £1 that we raise provides ORT with the leverage to raise another £19 from official and other sources.”

Guido is keeping an eye out for Conservative sinners. The story placed in The Times about Cameron in danger over ‘cloud cuckooland’ Euro policy was a clever bit of dark arts. Supposedly sourced from supporters who have warned him that his policies on Europe are “absolute madness” and will reopen the party’s wounds on its most divisive issue.

“His pro-EU followers complain that a policy he has adopted to woo Eurosceptics from his rival, David Davis, is “cloud cuckooland” and will inevitably lead to an open rebellion among the party’s MEPs.”

Two natives of Brussels, Robert Atkins MEP and Philip Bushill-Mattews MEP, both allegedly Cameron supporters, are quoted attacking Cameron. Clever spin, Cameron ‘supporters’ using Europe to stir up trouble for Cameron.

Who is actually stirring up trouble? Step forward Kevin Bell of Fleishman-Hillard and former protégé of Lord Tinker-Bell of Colombia. Scott Colvin, ex-Tory HQ now spinning at Fleishman Europe, assists him and along with David Hart they aim to stop the hustings becoming a coronation and put out more stories like today’s one in The Times.

They are going to put particular effort into creating spontaneous “grassroots stories” that do not obviously come from Basher’s campaign. Lets hope they are more successful than they were with the last machiavellian attempt at creating ‘spontaneous support’ for DD. The result was David Hart’s girlfriend made a bit of a tit of herself and Basher in those t-shirts…

Guido was going to dissect Blunkett’s inconsistencies and lies. The problems with the tax dodging trust for the shares he was bunged, a trust that he evidently has control of, which was obviously designed to dodge taxes. Guido was going to do all this as soon as he had put his shirt on Bonkers losing his job again. Now the advisory committee has stuck the knife in Blunkett is a dead man walking, with his only friend being the dog, thanks to those indiscrete, drink-fuelled comments about colleagues to his biographer, Fatty Pollard. Alas, no bookmaker is willing to take my bet.
Blunkett will not survive this, the Tories and LibDems would be wise to take their time and let the government stew slowly. Shakespeare reckoned it was a tangled web we weave when we first do practise to deceive, but Blunket will lie and twist about this like a double helix. Blunkett claims he only worked for DNA Bung-sciences for two weeks. What was the nature of the work? Did he advise them how to get a government contract? What know-how did he have to offer them that was worth £300,000? He was claiming at the time to be campaigning hard in constituency after constituency during the election. How much was he paid? Did he get the shares in lieu of payment? What tax was paid? Was he influence peddling again, as he did at Indepen Consulting?

Its not like he doesn’t have enough tax problems already. Go Growling Grayling…

UPDATE : Bill Norton emails from Basher’s campaign to point out that I have mis-quoted Shakespeare. Bill, wouldn’t your time be better spent speech-coaching your leader for Thursday night?

Basher’s supporters describe him as the Heineken candidate “..the DD campaign has the chance to communicate its message clearly. That message, in a word, is ‘Heineken‘ – that under a DD leadership, the party can reach the parts of Britain that it hasn’t reached for far too long. DD is the best candidate to reach out beyond our southern comfort zone ..yadda yadda yadda.. because he grew up on a council estate and is the son of a single mum.” Cue violins…

So wrote Basher-backing MP Paul Goodman. Wat Tyler, the increasingly desperate online cheerleader also lauds his hero as the Heineken candidate. So what do the polls say?

David Davis is less popular in the North than he is in the South. Yes that says he is even less popular amongst Northern Tories than Southern softies. ICM polling shows that oop North only 18% intend to vote for Basher and 82% for Cameron. Down South that narrows fractionally to 24% for Basher and 76% for Cameron. Even in his own Midlands Cameron beats him 71% to 29%. The only place that the Heineken candidate seems to reach is a distant last place.

Not Blunkett, the Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie MSP has resigned as head of the party.

Seven months ago Blunkett’s links to Indepen were highlighted here. Well done to the Dead Tree Press for catching up…

An eagle-eyed blog reader emailed me something interesting. As a consequence Guido put it to Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome.Com that he was the author of last week’s Cameron-skewering David Davis press release on tax cuts. It was splashed prominently on his website “Finally, finally, David Davis rises to the occasion“ and elsewhere in the media the next day. Tim told me I was misinformed.

How then, Guido asked him, does he explain his name being put as the author of the Microsoft Word file version of the press release? “I have absolutely no idea. I was definitely not involved.” Hmmm.

Further investigation resulted in an explanation centred on Nick Wood, Basher’s newly recruited spin merchant. He was formerly IDS’ spin merchant when he was Tory leader and latterly has been spinning for IDS’ Centre for Social Justice run by Tim Montgomerie.

Tim, who used to run Conservative Christian Fellowship, had lent his old laptop from his CCF days to Nick Wood, on which Nick writes press releases for Basher. “Nick Wood – a friend who has just joined the DD campaign – has an old laptop of mine. End of mystery. I am definitely not working for the DD campaign!” Its a small world, eh?

But now Guido wants to know, what taxes would Jesus cut? Or would he render unto Gordon what was Gordon’s?