Westminster is reeling this afternoon, and it’s not because of the lunchtime Guinness or the tears of laughter at the Liberal Democrat’s new campaign theme tune. There is a sense of bemusement that for once the Prime Mentalist has admitted that one of his lines has unravelled after some gentle probing from Cathy Newman.The spinners are suggesting Gordon might have mis-spoken to Chilcott about defence spending increasing, but the line falls flat given he not only said it at the inquiry but again on radio and television last week and again in the House at last weeks PMQs. A shocked Dave seemed lost for words and didn’t put the boot in sufficiently so unused is he to any admission on fallibility from Gordon. Brown’s dogged determination that he is always right has taken a mighty blow. Perhaps now time to admit a few other home truths. Boom and bust anyone?

Gordon was showing his true Prime Mentalist colours when he appeared on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour this morning. Firstly he claimed “I feel more comfortable with women, I have got to tell you”. If that was really true, then why the need for the “I have got to tell you.” Which aide told him “you’ve got to tell them that”?

Secondly and terrifyingly he said that even if he loses the election “I’ll keep going because I want a majority, I’ll keep going.”  It seems he doesn’t quite understand how elections work. It’s pure arrogance to think the country would tolerate him after rejecting  him at the ballot box and it’s almost as naive as thinking his party won’t be calling for his head within minutes of the polls closing. The delusion is really setting in.

It seems he has form in the whole not-quite-getting-how-elections-work area.

Video via Tory Landlord

UPDATE: At 11.19 Guido stated the thought of Gordon clinging on was terrifying. At 11.48 a CCHQ press officer said the prospect of Brown clinging on was “truly terrifying”. Another happy reader.

Gordon told us at his first Labour Party conference as leader in 2007:

So this is my pledge to the British people:

I will not let you down.

And I will always stand up for you.

He also said

it is because of the strength of the British economy that we are able to steer a path of low inflation, low interest rates and stable growth… with the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in the history of our country.

Then the economy collapsed…

Social mobility down.  Youth unemployment up.  One in five state-school leavers functionally illiterate. Prudence, abandoned. Deficit at disastrous levels.  Last major country out of recession. Credit rating downgraded.  The country is broke.  No ending of boom and bust.  The lies, the bullying, the dithering, the politics of destruction.

Too late…

The Curse of the One-Eyed Son of the Manse will not go away. Pharma big boys AstraZeneca were very chuffed when Gordon welcomed their chairman as one of Britain’s Business Ambassadors three months ago. This was never going to go well. The smile was soon wiped off their faces when Mr Ambassador fired 2,200 of his staff this week.

The curse was particularly powerful north of the border. Last Thursday Gordon shared the top table at a Labour Party fund-raiser in Glasgow with the leader of the council, the flamboyant “high-flyer” Steven Purcell. Colleagues say he was buzzing at the party.  The next morning his career was over.  Purcell mysteriously cancelled meetings before eventually clearing his whole diary and promptly resigned citing “stress“.

Purcell then spent the weekend in the Castle Craig rehab centre and brought in a friend’s crisis management company to handle the press.  The spin is that this is all stress related.  When Guido gets over-stressed he goes on a beach holiday, not to a rehab centre. It is rumoured that Purcell’s staff wanted to send out a more honest press release about his “chemical dependency”.  In any event the cover-up lasted less than 48 hours.  Has he blown his career? Who nose?  His spin team and lawyers are threatening to sue all and sundry. Peter Watson, his lawyer, told Guido that he would invoke Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights against him if the blog crossed the line into Purcell’s privacy.  What a proper charlie…

Downing Street is silent on the issue, perhaps like our high-flyer they need to sort out their line…

Stephen Carter, who was reduced to tears by Gordon’s bullying before being bought off with a peerage for his silence, has landed new job. Though it seems the new head of comms for tech giants Alcatel-Lucent has airbrushed out his time in the bunker from his CV.  Perhaps he doesn’t want to be professionally associated with Gordon’s regime. Hardly surprising given how Rawnsley (on page 546 of The End of the Party) described Carter’s treatment by McBride and Gordon:

“He was undermined from the start by the old Brown clique. He bumped into Damian McBride, who saw him as a threat,” says another of Brown’s aides. “It was a turf thing.  Stephen was a really nice bloke,” comments one civil servant. “He just didn’t know what he was letting himself in for. They made a decision to f**k this guy. By April, it was transparent to everyone in the building that this guy was dead.”"

There is a sense of satisfaction that Carter is now earning hundreds of thousands, while McBride is picking up litter in a playground.

Today has been a rather heavy day for evidence based blogging, but one more graph:

Every time Labour show a whiff of recovery the pound crashes.

Well it is certain to be a lively PMQs today. Gordon told GMTV this morning ”I would never engage in divisive or partisan politics.” The spinning is out of control. What would he describe his entire budgets designed to attack the opposition as? What would he describe his maneuvers over many years that finally saw Blair ousted? What would he call what McBride was up to?

Guido has long suspected Darling might be the one to emerge out of the mud and poison surrounding Brown’s government with any semblance of dignity and reputation intact. From his icy put down of McBride with the cutting “I’m still here“, to his description of the Brown/Balls/Wheelan/McBride combo as the “forces of hell”, the ill-treated Chancellor knew exactly what he was doing in keeping the story alive. The Brown’s a Bully story has taken a new turn and it’s not just Darling who has been on the receiving end of it. Most of Westminster’s finest correspondents know just how this mob have worked for the last decade. Brown can talk of working “in an open plan office; we are a big happy family at No 10,” but frankly it’s too late.

No one believes the lies anymore.

Just under a year ago Cheryl  Cole had tea at Number 10 with Jonah. It wasn’t long before rumours spread of her troubled relationship with footballer hubby Ashley Cole. Last night we heard they are to split up. There was nothing she could do to stop her fate.

The Curse of the One-Eyed Son of the Manse had struck again.

Someone in Ed Ball’s Department of Children, Schools and Families couldn’t keep a straight face when details of an upcoming training day were revealed yesterday. Guido hears that the Anti-Social Behaviour, Bullying and Truancy Seminar next month will include the following sessions:

• What are Government’s agenda and expectations?
• Do we pay too much attention to the perpetrators and not enough to the victims?
• How should we develop more effective approaches to identifying, helping and supporting victims?
• Where can we hope to be in ten years time?

Given that internal polling is showing the Cabinet Office is too scared to speak out about the bullying that goes on, perhaps Gordon should pop along to the session in Leeds next month. Ball’s just told Radio 4 that he has never seen Gordon bully anyone. Must be tough for him to spot what he is a pivotal part of…