Guido was having a drink last night with a savvy, unsuccessful Labour PPC from the last election. When I said that Cameron will win the next election, instead of laughing he replied that he himself was young and a period in opposition would suit him career-wise. New Labour senses it now has a real challenge.

There really is a palpable sense of change around Westminster, the next 20 days will be interesting. Gordon on the Today programme this morning used the “same old Tories, just with a makeover” line. That spin won’t work if Cameron delivers new faces and a new image based on real change. The next generation has to be given front-line jobs. Change to win now has to really become more than a slogan. Guido’s normal cynicism will resume tomorrow.

Growling Chris Gayling has got his teeth into Charles Kennedy, the LibDems have been caught with their hands in the foreign till. Marbella based tax-exile, Paul Church, a Spanish resident who has lived abroad for more than 20 years, has together with his wife given Charlie £125,000. Donations from overseas are not allowed and the donations were put down to a Paul Church of Wiltshire.

Alas Mr Church has little to no connection with Wiltshire. Is this an unfortunate one-off mistake of taking money from a foreigner? Well Chatshow Charlie has previous here, his party took £2.4 million from Switzerland based Michael Brown with use of a private plane thrown in. Painful. Such a shame LibDem Watch is no more…

Fantasy Shadow Cabinet is the press game of the moment, and its certainly a bit of fun. A lot of articles and pundits make a comparison of the Blair / Brown relationship to the Cameron / Osborne relationship. This is going to be another one, with a twist. Brown was pushed to stand aside by Mandelson because New Labour’s prospects were, the Prince of Darkness rightly calculated, better under Blair. Brown reluctantly did so and New Labour went on to dominate the decade. Osborne should similarly stand aside in the interests of his party, he is simply not strong enough to oppose Brown’s steamroller at the dispatch box. Hague is brilliant in parliament. The Wilberforce book can wait William, your party needs you.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, online and on the world-wide web. Guido has had approaching 200,000 hits in the last few days related to the Press Plagiarist of the Year Award. Marina Hyde’s cut ‘n paste fame has reached out as far as to Washington’s Wonkette, coverage of the award has been global. Tim Worstall can’t believe his traffic. Recess and Guido still aim to present and digitally capture the award presentations – so watch out Peter and Marina – it is panto season – BEHIND YOU!

And not a single advert on this blog…

The end is nigh, if you haven’t voted yet, you are too late. The bookies have stopped taking bets on Cameron, the campaigns have drawn to a halt and Guido for one is relieved that the marathon is over.

Basher’s campaign team have their CVs out, Davis himself is reading Jane’s Defence Weekly, even Wat Tyler accepts that an Elvis comeback is more likely than a Davis victory.

Michael Howard, by design or a stroke of luck, has revived the Tories for his own chosen sucessor. The Tories have benefitted massively from the campaign amongst the chattering / political classes and the media. When the Indy devotes a six page supplement to Cameron, you know that Hampstead is once again contemplating voting Tory. How will he play out with the wider public? My hunch is that he will do better than the polls currently suggest. Gordon Brown will lose to Cameron, because given a choice between dour, tired and old, versus young, fresh and optimistic, Britain will vote for change. But only if Cameron really changes the Tories as promised. The fizzy water is on ice in Notting Hill and invites are out for a we-can’t-call-it a-victory-party-yet party on Tuesday afternoon. A smiling Cameron is on the way to 10 Downing Street, and power is a head-rush better than any other he has experienced…

So without further ado we the nominating committee can announce that in third place in the Press Plagiarist of the Year Awards 2005 :

Ephraim can’t be with us today as he is propping up a bar somewhere and although we have sent him a few emails, he has just been too lazy to reply. Recess Monkey, Wat Tyler, Guido and others plan to send him invoices instead of email next year.

* Runner-up, with just under a third of the votes cast was Marina Hyde, formerly the Guardian’s diarist. The little minx made good use of Google and the blogosphere to do her research. Guido noticed the similarity between some stories on the net and Ms Hyde’s, only her versions were usually published after he had noticed them elsewhere online. Then, during the U.S. election, Guido noticed that she was lifting whole concepts and themes as well as jokes from Wonkette – the sassy well known Washington D.C. blog. When her co-diarist and fellow nominee, Simon Goodley, nicked a joke verbatim from Guido it was time to act and the Press Plagiarist of the Year Awards were born. Marina’s popularity can be seen by just how many of the votes for Marina came from fellow journalists.
*Picture cut ‘n pasted (appropriately enough) from the Guardian’s own website.

Finally…

With 46% of the vote, Peter Wright, as Editor, takes the rap for the most outrageous and blatant piece of plagiarism of the year. Across two pages he cut ‘n pasted the writings of “PC Copperfield” of the Policeman’s blog. In the blogging Copper’s own words, “The Mail on Sunday never even asked… bastards“.

It was, of course, a repeat offence and we will do all we can to get justice and the award to its intended recipient.

It looks like my friend Iain Dale has already thrown in the towel, he’s gone back to blogging instead of Chief-of-Staffing for Basher. What does this mean? Does Iain suspect he may not be ensconced in the Leader of the Opposition’s office next week?

Hat-tip: Backbencher

The BBC kindly gives the award some coverage, but despite a couple of emails, no comment, so far, from the nominees. Marina? Ephraim? Now we all know they read this blog, why no reply?

When The Sun was looking for someone right-wing and reactionary enough to replace Littlejohn who came into Rebekah Wade’s mind? Why disgraced former minister David Blunkett of course, his “forthright and outspoken views on life and politics” will be aired in a weekly column starting tomorrow.

A socialist resident of Belgravia, Blunkett made £91,000 on top of his parliamentary salary last year.

Guido has been looking for an excuse to use this picture of a worse-for-wear Blunkett making a grab for a dog.

Incidentally, Rebekah Wade’s so butch husband can dance!

Hat-tip : Bloggerheads