Guido couldn’t help but chuckle as the red’s star player stormed off in a huff. The Rooney story has been the media’s non-political antidote to the last few days of cuts, but given that Blair used to call David Miliband “my Rooney”, the parallel is even funnier. Still waiting for Blair’s Ferguson style “I just don’t know what went wrong” press conference though…

UPDATE: With a rare moment of wit, the Fabian’s Sunder Katwala notes that “Wayne & David both went into this summer’s big tournament with very high hopes and expectations; and badly underperformed”.

The New York Times is claiming that the dialogue in Blair’s book “A Journey” where the Queen says

“You are my 10th prime minister, the first was Winston. That was before you were born.”

Is based entirely on a fictional scene from the 2006 film “The Queen” starring Helen Mirren. An amazing coincidence reckons the film’s scriptwriter. Blair make something up to suit his purposes? Say it ain’t so…

No surprises that Tony showers praise on his loyal heir David Miliband. A good spot by Andrew Sparrow who notes:

“Blair says that Miliband was “fundamentally uncertain” in 2007 about whether he wanted the top job. But Blair also says: “Two years later he would be a different calibre of politician, with clear leadership qualities.”

Blair says “two years later”. But we’re reading this more than three years later. Is that sloppy editing? Or does it mean that Blair thought Miliband should replace Brown in 2009, before the general election?”

No other leadership candidate gets anywhere near the support. Ed Miliband is merely seen as one of Brown’s “folk”. Pure venom is spat at Ed Balls. Along side talk of him “behaving badly” was this gem:

“He has guts and he can take decisions. But he suffers from the bane of all left-leaning intellectuals. As I have remarked elsewhere, these guys never ‘get’ aspiration”

The other two candidates are barely mentioned in passing. Blair admits he knew Brown would be a disaster and had David preparing for a leadership bid in 2007. Things would have been very different if the prodigy had found the courage…

As The Journey hits the bookshelves, the truth about the TB/GBs is seeping out. Gordon was “maddening”, drove Blair to drink and he apparently always knew the nutter next door would be a dreadful Prime Minister. Nice of him to tell us this at the time, and during the election.

Hacks are queuing up to say “I told you so”, except that they didn’t, until it was too late. Even Nick Robinson is having a go:

“Some said it was tittle tattle, others that it was speculation, a few dared to suggest that it was fabrication. I now accept that I made mistakes. Things were worse – much worse – than I reflected at the time.”

Nice to see he was toeing the line as ever – “I did not report then but now can…”

The Tories will make hay of the endorsement for their economic policy. The fact that Gordon had actually theatened to unleash the Cash for Honours storm in a row over policy has confirmed long held suspicions that the dark arts were used there. In the mean time Guido is going to keep reading…

As much as the candidates may try to spin it, it is clear the old guard still have the ability to upset the leadership apple-cart. Guido, like most people, wasn’t really paying much attention to the squabbles of the weekend after Mandy dipped an oar in. To summarise, it seems the Dark Lord made a supportive comment about Miliband D, who promptly said “woah there, back off with the endorsements”. Miliband E took offence, and a man who knows all about winning, Lord Kinnock came to his defence. As ever Lord Prescott got angry.

All fascinating stuff that kept the news channels occupied over the long weekend. The Labour Party is really covering itself in glory with this fascinating, in depth, internal discussion about it’s future. News is starting to emerge of Blair’s criticisms of Brown in his book published tomorrow. How convenient for the rest of the country that the Labour Party go into meltdown about the past, the war, the lies and the spin the day the ballot papers go out…

Perfect timing our Tone.

Lest we forget the 13 years before the last 100 days…

Though no longer a front-bencher, or even a participating Member of Parliament, Gordon has found it necessary to recruit a PPS. Alison McGovern, newly elected MP for Wirral South, has been appointed bag-carrier-in-chief . While he sits at home in Fife, rocking, back and forth, spinning his disastrous economic record, she will be working in Westminster on his behalf. Why can’t he do it? Guido recommends  she spend more time shoring up her own ultra-marginal constituency.

Tony is off to Kosovo today to receive the Golden Medal of Freedom. He will meet leaders and address their Assembly. No expense is being spared for their hero’s welcome, although he won’t be offered honorary tribal membership as he was in Sierra Leone. While unwanted and still hated by swathes of his own country, the Blair magic is undiminished on the international stage.

‘Tonibler’ is a popular name for young Kosovans, and he has streets named after him. Guido is racking his brains as to where in the world his successor would receive anything other than polite applause…

UPDATE: While Blair might be popular, a Kosovan co-conspirator notes that he has a long way to go to beat Clinton as a local hero:

Blair doesn’t even have his own scrapyard in Pristina named after him yet.

Given his willingness to use it for his own advantage whenever he was attempting his salt-of-the-earth, dyed-in-the-wool working class act, you would think that Tony Blair would have a little more concern for the fate of Trimdon Labour Club. His own authoritarian smoking legislation is to blame for the club being forced out of business and it is set to close. Perhaps he could dip into his pockets, or perhaps one of his off-shore trusts, for a little assistance to keep it afloat. Come on our Tony give something back t’Labour.

The British public clearly have a longer memory than the Labour Party would like, even their own most loyal apparatchiks have mixed feelings about the return of Blair. Despite the billing that this was to be a swinging attack at Cameron, old Tony refused to personally attack his political heir: Dave. Instead he chose to meekly go after wonky Oliver Letwin about market forces in the public services – something New Labour was built on.

He also suggested that Labour had never used the ”vacuous” slogan “time for a change“, Guido begs to differ and wonders what Tony’s good chum Obama would have to say about that. Looking more orange than even Peter Hain, Guido suspects we won’t be seeing much more of Blair in the run up to polling day – not with the 50% tax rate and everything. He’ll resist the temptation to upstage Brown, it would in any event tarnish his reputation as a thrice-proven election winner to be associated with Brown…