It was only a matter of time…

First Fergie, now David Beckham has retired from professional football. Gordon strikes again…

It’s official: 71% of Scots say the Prime Mentalist is a liability. Readers of the Scotsman say Gordon’s attempt to take on the freedom fighters will do his cause more harm than good. It would be some Jonah curse…

H/T @moonbeamfalafel

It was only a matter of time…

Tory strategists could be forgiven for worrying that after three years of little or no growth and a £120 billion spending black hole this year alone, Dave and George’s reliance on blaming Britain’s economic slump on the last Labour government might be wearing thin with voters. Apparently not.

A study by media agency OMD of over 2,000 adults from across the UK has found that 53% still blame the previous Labour government for Britain’s ongoing economic problems, compared with just 39% blaming the coalition. 39% say Gordon is the main culprit, with just 27% fingering Cameron and 23% Osborne. Numbers Downing Street will be clinging onto…

Scottish Coal has gone into provisional liquidation, with 600 people losing their jobs. Asset strippers have moved in, mines are being sold off and the business is winding up. What went wrong?

The doom-mongering Prime Mentalist was all smiles and full of good cheer as he visited Scottish Coal at St. Ninians in Fife last May:

“The Company and all those who work on the site should be very proud of what they are doing. I am sure that the project will be a big success and become a significant asset for our local area.”

Everything he touches…

Doomed.

Ed’s one-time guru Maurice Glasman has some choice words about what things were like under the Prime Mentalist:

“In the end, where there’s no movement, where there’s only outcomes, where it’s all completely administrative: spending money is all you can do. That’s the whole story of what happened to Gordon Brown who was just sitting there allocating or not allocating resources to people. There was no devolution of power, no politics in that. It was an entirely Brezhnevite kind of administrative system.”

The two Eds must have had a great time. From Mr Bean to Brezhnev…

The news that McBride’s book will upset Labour conference has caused a flutter today. Many of his old allies have popped up to help the re-branding exercise. No doubt they will be salivating at the prospect of the serialisation rights, hence why no one has noted that the deal will earn Mad Dog far more than the royalties he has pledged to give away. Looking back at his recent blogposts shows the level of detail we can expect about the Brown years; one thing stuck out about his latest musing though:

“As our internal polls used to tell us, there were a number of Tory leaders who could potentially have beaten Tony Blair in 2005, and Hague was arguably one of them.”

You have to wonder what a Civil Servant at the Treasury was doing having access to “internal polls” in 2005. What internal polls? Surely the Treasury were not polling this sort of information? A Labour source familiar with that particular period does not recall any Labour Party poll commissioned on the subject. Was this done by that famous impartial charity the Smith Institute? If not, who paid for it and was money declared? What else will Damian let out of the bag about doing Gordon’s leadership dirty work on the taxpayer? 

With a twist of the knife, the statutory underpinning of the Royal Charter will be put forward in the Lords this afternoon by former Gordon Brown Special Adviser Lord Wilf Stevenson. Loyal Guido readers will remember Stevenson’s role as the Director of Brown’s leadership slush fund the Smith Institute, a position he was forced to resign from after heavy criticism from the Charity Commission. Guido’s sustained campaign to make that happen can be found here.

The Prime Mentalist and his allies are having their revenge for exposure of their dodgy ways.