Tony Blair scheduled a two hour afternoon slot into his diary to enjoy the company of alluring Chinese actress Li Bingbing during a 2012 business trip to China. According to documents seen by the Telegraph, Blair touched down in Beijing and raced straight to see Ms Bingbing before the grind of meeting CEO’s and politicians began.

Blair first met Bingbing – who is a friend of Wendi Deng – at a climate change campaign in 2009 and has been spotted regularly with the Chinese siren since. Bada Bingbing, bada boom…

Bored civil servants have been handed a helpful memo on how to fill up their time until a new government has been selected by those pesky voters:

The bit that really caught Guido’s eye was the pen pushers’ idea of “a range” of recommended reading on governmental matters:

· Michael Barber, ‘How to run a Government’
· Tony Blair, ‘A journey’
· Alastair Campbell, ‘The Blair years: extracts from the Alastair Campbell diaries’
· Anthony King and Ivor Crewe, ‘The blunders of our governments’
· Damian McBride, ‘Power Trip: a decade of policy, plots and spin’
· Chris Mullin, ‘A view from the foothills: the Chris Mullin diaries’

Hardly an impartial list…

Well reading between the lines:

“Remember the relief we felt when Scotland voted no. Why was that? Because towards the end, having paid only intermittent attention to the enormity of the decision, we awoke to it and realised – I think with shock – how close we had come to relegating ourselves from the Premier League of nations. Now think if the vote had gone the other way. It doesn’t bear thinking of. It would be exactly the same with a vote on Europe. We’re frankly not much focused on it now. But that is the same semi-conscious torpor that almost led us to disaster in keeping the UK together.”

Basically he is saying the people don’t think about these things hard enough, so we can’t risk them getting it wrong by giving them the chance.

Because Tony Blair never got anything wrong in the face of popular opinion now, did he…

There was plenty of chatter in the broadsheets this weekend about what, if any, role Tony Blair would play in the coming Labour election campaign. However – as readers of the Sun on Sunday would know – Mr Tony was already back and doing his part to raise cash for candidates last week. As Guido revealed yesterday, Tony and Cherie made a rare public appearance together on Thursday at the Grand Imperial Hotel for a glitzy fundraiser for gay Labour candidates.

Last seen awkwardly posing for a very uncomfortable Christmas card, friends were surprised to see the pair work the room just like the old days, despite a turbulent year. “He was very wistful,” says Guido’s mole, “he’s really starting to show his age”. There were handbags later after Chris Bryant “made a bitchy comment about Tony and loyalty to Ed Miliband”. Guido hears Chris was swiftly – and loudly – reminded of his public letter-writing campaign that helped bring Blair down. Sic semper…

Labour have declined the opportunity to comment on Guido’s revelation that Tony Blair will be back campaigning for Labour before the election. As reported in yesterday’s Sun, Mr Tony is fronting a fundraising drive for gay Labour candidates next month – a rare return to frontline British politics. The party declined to comment when asked if Ed welcomed the move. Blair, who? Never heard of him…