Guido enjoys browsing the entire website devoted to Awkward Ed Miliband Moments, CCHQ’s press office delights in re-tweeting gurning pictures of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition and now the Mail joins in with 9 pictures taken during his speech yesterday. Not so much ‘Red Ed’ as ‘Weird Ed’.

Is this the face of a Prime Minister?

The ComRes/Indy poll makes pretty sorry reading for Labour HQ (Con 37%, Lab 37%, Lib 12%). The Ed Miliband honeymoon is clearly over.

Guido wasn’t expecting the Tories to be level pegging with the Labour Party in the polls until the autumn conference season. Guido expects Ed will  underwhelm the already restless rank and file during the Labour Party’s conference. With half the shadow cabinet in despair with their weak leader and even Tom Baldwin seeming to have lost his motivation to spin,   MPs are beginning to contemplate the unhappy prospect of getting rid of the Labour leader next year. Plotting Blairites are setting Ed up for a fall, claiming that if Boris wins the London mayoral election, Ed will have to go. Guido doesn’t quite follow why that should be a consequence. The CCHQ “Save Ed” faction is getting worried…

Sir Richard Caring lent Labour £2 million back  during the loans-for-lordships era under Blair. He didn’t collect a peerage but he has been collecting 6.5% interest on the loan, or some £130,000 a year. That is roughly £2-a-year from each and every single Labour Party member.

With the Tories now in power he has switched and donated £140,000 to them. Guido thinks it a deliciously witty joke to donate the Labour Party’s interest payments to the Conservative Party’s treasure chest…

Hat-tip: David Hencke

CCHQ source said…

“Don’t know why anyone thinks privatising the forests is some right-wing ideological plan, Caroline Spelman came up with it for Chrissakes.”

Tom Baldwin must have more influence than Guido has given him credit for. Not only has he got toadying newsreaders like Krishnan Guru-Murthy to obey his decree that the coalition must be called the “Tory-led government”, but it seems even CCHQ are pushing the line:

He should write those letters more often.

Guido hears that CCHQ are bracing themselves for more revelations about the amorous Lord Strathclyde in this weekend’s newspapers. As Leader of the Tories in the Lords, Tommy is responsible for fixing the AV mess that could well see the referendum delayed, if he were to be forced out this weekend it could be very messy. The punters over at Smarkets have Strathride at 2/1 favourite to be the next cabinet minister to walk…

Today is the day that Tom Watson predicted Andy Coulson would resign. He was clearly woefully inaccurate, out by 96 hours, but then he also said it would be over by Christmas. In the same long rambling piece from a couple of weeks ago, Watson suggested that the same excellent source told him the Cameron was planning to go to the country in May. Needless to say most people dismissed the idea immediately, and they are highly likely to be right, however since Watson’s Coulson tip nearly came true, Guido has been thinking. The CCHQ research department has been restocked after being raided for SpAds, the press office has been boosted by the unexpected return of Henry Macrory and the digital team is beefing up. Are they on a war footing?

The LibDems would be obliterated by an early election and Miliband has not had enough time to settle into the role, so you can see the logic. The only problem being that Dave doesn’t want to obliterate the LibDems.

UPDATE: Eagle-eyed commenters notice that Political Betting suggested yesterday that Tom Watson’s source should be revisted. Guido hadn’t seen the piece, it was the jobs in CCHQ that got him thinking, but they do point out another factor – the Tories are certainly the only ones who could afford an election.

Tory high command briefs against Sayeeda Warsi…

“…you can’t put her on the radio. She’s just a disaster waiting to happen.”

Guido has been worrying for some time that the government is in thrall to left-wing progressive nonsense and drifting towards the soggy centre. Thankfully a document has turned up in the inbox that suggests otherwise – the Steve Hilton / Rohan Silva policy announcements grid. Whilst in opposition Steve, Rohan and the rest of the zen-men had their heads in the clouds with blue-sky thinking so much that they forgot to take one of their rather revealing policy strategy agendas out of the photocopier:

Standard Cameroon opposition fluff is all covered, along with key points to be addressed. “Progressive Conservatism” was top of the agenda with “Red-Tory” Philip Blond flavour of the month with the chattering classes, and clearly open to having his strings pulled:

CCHQ were so keen on pushing the Guardian-friendly “Progressive Conservatism” agenda that they even made a video:

Blond came up with the goods in PR terms over and over again with some ever so helpful mood-setting articles.

However there was one firm policy point on the grid to be pushed that really struck Guido:

Clearly this wasn’t a sincerely held all-encompassing broad policy, it was cynically designed to land blows on the Labour government in the pre-election air war, it was an effective ploy to spin how much the Tories were a changed ‘progressive’ party. Guido is reassured that even the likes of Steve Hilton thought it a load of nonsense…

Sky is reporting that an 18 year-old man has been arrested after turning himself in this evening in connection with a fire extinguisher thrown from a roof during violent student demonstrations.