Guido spotted Sheridan Westlake at the party last night. “Nick, Nick” I called to him and bemused he turned around, Guido proffered him his business card. He looked visibly shaken and a tiny sliver of shame for Guido’s tormenting of him came over him.

Guido got too drunk to remember what he actually does at CCHQ, I do recall him saying Recess Monkey was an idiot. Anyway, it’s now Guido’s New Year’s resolution not to torment him anymore.

Propeller-Head Wonk Watch: As the post-leadership battle dust settles, the battle for the ear of the new regime begins. Guido wrote previously about the alignment of the think-tanks during the election hustings, now the importance of having influence with Cameron has shot up the think-tank agenda because New Labour seems so intellectually tired and the novelty of the Notting Hill set seems as attractive to wonks as much as voters. So who in wonk-land looks to be favoured by the new regime?

The old generation right-of-centre think-tanks frankly missed the whole Cameron phenomena. They also backed, in the main, the man they knew – Davis. So Cameron owes no debts to them. The big winner is Nicholas Boles, the fairy godmother of the modernisers, his Policy Exchange think-tank was the platform for modernising ideas, it even hosted C-Change, the virtual pressure group that first told the Tories it was time to adapt or die. It was also home to Francis Maude before he was brought in by Michael Howard to begin the re-making of the party. Labour researchers will be poring over the output of Policy Exchange for an idea as to what Cameron’s Conservatives will be about policy wise.

Boles’ wonk-shop has had no influence on the government, but it has had a lot of influence on the Conservatives. Policy Exchange’s themes of localism and quality of life are now key policy objectives, but more importantly the fresh look and feel of the Tories owes much to their modernising attitude.

Boles himself is an ex-flat mate of Michael Gove, he was a councillor on Westminster council along with Ed Vaizey so he is as close to the Cameron crowd as you can get. If 211 voters more in Brighton Hove had voted for him he could now be on the Tory front-bench. Boles may yet be parachuted in to parliament, although he could equally be as much use outside as a domestic policy outrider.

On international affairs the policy outrider is Alex Singleton’s Globalisation Institute. Which has taken Guido’s advice and swapped the ‘z’ for an ‘s’ in its name since its launch. As a charity it kept out of the fray during the Tory hustings, but the many stirring pictures of Cameron on the website’s blog told you clearly where its heart lay. The evidence suggests Cameron’s speechwriter (Steve Hilton) was familiar with the Institute’s output as this blog article hints. CCHQ sources confirm that Alex Singleton has recently been seen in the building.

Singleton is the former research director of the Adam Smith Institute who kicked off the flat-tax debate by commissioning a report on it in 2004. When he left to set-up the his own shop, the Archbishop of Canterbury weighed in on the first report from the man the UN’s secretary-general’s chief-of-staff calls “the high priest of globalisation”. The whizz-kid wonk is a former geek technology writer and has no time for girlfriends – or perhaps that’s just a phase. (What is it about right-wing wonks?)

Guido bets the forthcoming, but as yet unannounced, Tory Commission on Globalisation and Global Poverty will take up the theme of enterprise-based development promoted by the Globalisation Institute.

All the think-tanks of the right will no doubt be switching priorities to the modernising agenda, but these two outriders have a headstart.

Its fair to say that CCHQ is now ecstatically in the grip of the Opus Dave cult, the girls and boys are wandering around with beatific smiles. Ahead in the polls? Its thirteen years since that happened, some of them had not even started on their synthetic phonics when that was last the case.

Spotted in the hands and handbags of the young cultists is Virgina Postrel’s book “The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness“ – which justifies style over substance. A vice that Davis supporters accused Cameron of, and of which Cameroonies are now making a virtue

Expect it to be in a few Christmas stockings of confused Tories eager to modernise their thinking.

Guido’s inbox is overflowing with email from Labour attacking Cameron. Ian McCartney makes the same mistake that the Tories did when confronted by Blair. The Tory propagnda of the mid-90s tried to demon-eyes him as a front for the usual Labour lefties – it failed. Labour’s feeble line is “New gloss, same old Tories”. Exactly echoing the same mistake that the Tories made in response to the Blair phenomenon. Cameron is not a re-tread, its the real deal, that kind of propaganda just won’t wash with the public. Better re-calibrate the slogans and propaganda fast.

Jo.Brand@reply-new.labour.org.uk emails Guido to ask “What’s Dave passionate about?” – its not cake Jo. She complains that Cameron is an old Etonian, yet Jo Brand is herself a product of a selective school education – something the socialist comedian doesn’t shout about…

Gordon Brown’s reaction to the latest polling results is unprintable. They say a picture is worth a thousand (swear) words.

All in all it looks like Labour is frit, the next few years are going to be great fun for all – except Gordon…

A group of CCHQ staff working the weekend shift yesterday went off to buy lunch in Westminster. All looking very Cameron style wearing trendy shirts sans ties etc. As they go to enter CCHQ Stephen Twigg says “you look like Labour students” and tags on the end of the group only to be stopped by the security staff.

The wonk-chief of the Foreign Policy Centre was supposed to be speaking at a Labour Students event around the corner.

A death in the family was the reason for Guido going offline last week. The difficult times meant Mrs Fawkes had to leave her office in a rush, picking up baby Fawkes from the creche en route in a taxi for City Airport, bound for Bolton.

Struggling at the check-in counter with bags, pushchair, crying snotty baby and tickets, the many pinstriped ‘gentlemen’ around her ignored her clear difficulties. A familiar looking woman stepped forward and helped with the heavy bags. As a result the MP for Bolton West can rely on Mrs Fawkes’ support ever more.

Over at ConservativeHome.Com Tim Montgomerie has written a good round-up of the campaign. Guido’s favourite line:

He [Cameron] is the kind of man that mature Tory ladies have always hoped that their daughter might bring home. By contrast, the same ladies saw the Davis team as the kind of bunch of they wouldn’t want their sons to fall in with.

Guido has obtained the serialisation rights to Ben Drown’s Di Visi Code, here is the first chapter. But is it fact or fiction?

Chapter One

They found the distinguished, experienced, white-haired, older man sprawled on the floor of Westminster Abbey, in the historic heart of traditional London, England. He had been stabbed in the back 121 times (at time of writing – the number goes up each day). The Police were baffled. They sent for me.

“I’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on,” said Inspector Mitchell. “Wye aye, man, we divvent a clue,” exclaimed Sgt Conway with rough Geordie honesty.

As an American academic specialising in a spurious made-up subject, with a surprising ignorance of basic Renaissance art, mediaeval history, architecture, geography, but a penchant for plagiarising 20 year old books and a completely unfeasible ability to attract leggy French totty, I am of course just the person the Police would turn to in order to solve a serious crime.

“There are 197 suspects,” said Inspector Mitchell. “They were all in their constituencies at the time.”

“Anything suspicious?” I asked.

“They were all in their constituencies. Look, Professor Longjohns, I haven’t the time to solve this mystery. There’s an armed gang of lunatics running around London shooting innocent people in the streets. And as well as Special Branch, I’ve got Al Qaeda to worry about. If this carries on I’m going to miss my next board meeting in Hong Kong. Sort it out.”

I surveyed anxiously the scene. The white-haired, experienced, older man was lying in a pool of (non-blue) blood. Strewn around him were piles of expenditure plans slashed to pieces. There were also four sixteenth century Italian paintings arranged in a line, to which the corpse’s contorted fingers were pointing at bizarre angles; a collection of half-completed crossword puzzles; a helicopter ticket to Blackpool; some discarded photographic negatives; a couple of computer CDs and a switched-on open laptop; on the floor were chalk markings of dots and dashes; and the wall was smeared with writing in blood. Absolutely nothing to go on.

I rolled the body over – because, as you know, it’s standard Police procedure to not check the corpse for clues – and gasped. Underneath the victim was a crushed bottle of fizzy water and some mint imperials.

“Inspector,” I stammered, fighting for air. “We are dealing with a sinister right-wing cult of incense-burning messianic fanatics.”

“You mean?”

“Exactly. This slaying was the work of Opus Dave.”

TO BE CONTINUED…..

I gather from Tim Montgomerie that he has had some half-million hits on his ConservativeHome.Com blog during the hustings, Guido has had some 479,550 since the general election. Admittedly 10% of the traffic was just Iain Dale checking what Guido was saying every minute, but even so, I think with a million hits between us we gave the dead-tree-press a good run for their money – in real time.